


when living starts to feel like dying

by thesemovingparts



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Anxiety, Homophobia, M/M, angst that will eventually ease up, it never gets super graphic but i'm still gonna tag each chapter for specifics in the notes, it's all about finding your way back after experiencing trauma, mentions of childhood trauma, mentions of past trauma, the title is vaguely different i know i've been weird about this let me live it's a tough fic, yes i did post this and delete it and it's back now whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-13 08:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12980007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesemovingparts/pseuds/thesemovingparts
Summary: “Brian, please. You’re scaring me,” Katya continued, voice serious and practically begging. This wasn’t Trixie on the other end of the phone, this was Brian in all his bare-bones, human glory.“I need you to pick me up,” Brian let out in a single breath, as though he was forcing the words out of his mouth by sheer will of necessity.“I’m on my way, where are you?” Katya was out of bed and sliding on his shoes in an instant, stepping over boxes of wigs and outfits that he had yet to unpack from tour on his way towards the door. He was already grabbing his keys by the time Brian responded.“UCLA Med.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm becca and i'm a piece of work. 
> 
> i posted the first two chapters of this once already and then deleted them (i'm sorry i lost all your wonderful comments, i panicked). basically i was overthinking it and worried that people were going to misconstrue me as trying to sensationalize this whole issue, but i've done some soul searching and realized that this fic was super cathartic for me to write because of personal life things i've experienced, and if it can be even remotely that cathartic for someone to read then maybe it's worth having up.
> 
> please pay attention to the warnings i've tagged and take care of yourselves. it never gets super graphic but i don't want this to have a negative impact on anyone's mental health. 
> 
> i love you all, thanks for reading (and for putting up with my scatterbrained, anxious self) <3

There was a time in Katya’s life during which he turned his phone off while he slept. 

Living his life through late nights and tour buses had made him truly value his sleep more than he ever had pre-sobriety. When you're meant to be staying sober, there's no pill to keep you focused, nothing you can smoke to give you more energy than Alyssa Edwards during a dance challenge. Thus, sleep became a commodity that Katya relied on.

This, paired with the fact that his friends were in vastly different time zones at any given time, meant that in order to really and genuinely get an even semi-good night’s sleep, the phone had to go.

With his phone silenced and shut off and tossed to the side, Katya could fall into the nonsensical dream world of his subconscious mind.

It had become a routine on tour, and it wasn't until the routine of nightly shows and tour bus bunks itself was broken that he started to become more forgetful about his love of uninterrupted sleep. 

He was home in LA to do shows and make videos and plan his next steps as the world’s favorite Russian whore and, in the week and a half he’d been home, his routine fell by the wayside. Some nights he'd wake up to group messages dinging away from halfway across the world or drunken phone calls from down the street and as much as he tried to remember to turn off his goddamn phone each night, there were still times his scattered brain wouldn't care to remind him of this one simple task.

On this particular night, Katya had gone to bed early. He was only a little bit lonely, knowing that at least he was going to be sticking around in one place for the foreseeable future and not running off across the globe again for a little while.  Sometimes, lonely wasn’t all bad. Sometimes it could just be simple. 

This night, however, was not simple, and it was  _ this _ night which broke Katya’s routine for good. He would always be grateful for having forgotten to turn his phone off. 

Katya’s ringtone was one of the generic ones provided by Apple. Of course, he’d really prefer it to be something more uniquely  _ his _ , but he didn’t quite have the technological prowess to figure that out (or the patience to really try). 

“What the fuck,” he audibly groaned as he rolled over in bed, still wearing the jeans and button down of the day before not having even bothered to change when he’d fallen into bed at ten. 

He reached out and grabbed his phone, not bothering to check the caller ID or the time of day in the process. 

“Hello?” he questioned, face still halfway in his pillow and eyes sewn shut. 

“Hi.”

Katya opened his eyes in recognition. 

“Trixie?” he asked, forcing himself to sit up and lean against the headboard. The line was quiet for a moment, and Katya would have thought he’d been hallucinating had it not been for the faint and quiet breathing flowing through the speakers. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” Trixie responded, voice quieter and softer and more broken than Katya had ever heard it. Or maybe they had just been apart for too long and this is what it had always sounded like. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Hi,” Katya’s heart sped up of its own accord. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table to find it was nearly four o’clock in the morning and suddenly realized that everything about this situation pointed more towards bad than good on the spectrum of late night phone calls. “Are you okay?”

Trixie was silent again in response, but Katya could hear him taking a deep, albeit shaky, breath. 

“Brian, please. You’re scaring me,” Katya continued, voice serious and practically begging. This wasn’t Trixie on the other end of the phone, drunk dialing her good pal Katya or tossing a new pun in her face for the sole purpose of getting a good chuckle out of her. This was Brian in all his bare-bones, human glory. 

“I need you to pick me up,” Brian let out in a single breath, as though he was forcing the words out of his mouth by sheer will of necessity. 

“I’m on my way, where are you?” Katya was out of bed and sliding on his shoes in an instant, stepping over boxes of wigs and outfits that he had yet to unpack from tour on his way towards the door. He was already grabbing his keys by the time Brian responded.

“UCLA Med.”

Katya froze, one hand on the door knob as his mouth hung open. Brian was in the hospital.

Brian was hurt or in trouble or any number of terrible things that Katya’s brain immediately started filing through like a rolodex of worst-case scenarios. He wanted to ask what had happened, he wanted to know immediately who had hurt Brian, how he was hurt, why he was hurt, so that he could do whatever it was that was needed to  _ fix _ this.

He wanted to ask and listen and know, but instead, he just nodded. 

“I’ll be there so soon, okay?” Katya pushed himself back into motion, barely remembering to lock his door behind him. “I’m coming as fast as I can, I promise,” he insisted, whether for Brian’s benefit or his own was still up for debate. 

“Okay,” Brian whispered on the other end of the line. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to--” Katya didn’t even have time to finish his sentence before Brian hung up with a definitive click. 

He almost let himself be offended for getting hung up on, before he realized that he had far more important (and far more terrifying) issues to deal with first. Katya slid into the driver’s seat of his car, knowing the odds of getting an Uber fast enough at this time of night (morning?) were slimmer than he was willing to risk.

A key in the ignition and turn signal later, Katya was on a nearly empty highway in Los Angeles. He wished that this was happening under different circumstances, that he could take a moment to marvel in the lack of traffic in the most notoriously jammed city in the world, but he barely saw the world around him as more than signs pointing him towards the nearest hospital. 

With a head filled with images of Brian is various states of duress and injury, Katya couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t how any of it was supposed to go down. He’d imagined this night a hundred thousand times and this was  _ never _ how it went. 

Katya was the addict, Katya was the reckless free-spirit of a person who wasn’t always good at taking care of himself and always half a step away from tragic and accidental death. It was supposed to be Katya who ended up under a sheet in the morgue, Brian having to identify his body while Katya’s family made their way across the country from Boston on a midnight flight. 

That scenario was the one that Katya had prepared for. He had even already accepted the guilt for making his loved ones go through even more distress at the hands of their doofus addict of an acquaintance. It was a morbid train of thought, the idea of his own death, but it was one he had come to terms with after the first time he’d gotten high out of his mind and realized what a problem it would be for the rest of his life. 

But it was never supposed to be Brian. 

Brian was steady hands on guitar strings and unfazed comebacks full of humor and thick skin, not the barely audible voice that had asked Katya for help that night. And sure, Katya was fully aware that Brian wasn’t dead, that there was no body to identify or mother to inform, but he still couldn’t help but think that bad things weren’t meant to happen to Brian. Not anymore. Not if he had anything to say about it. 

So he drove. 

He drove and drove, lights of the city on one side and dark mountains on the other as his hands gripped the steering wheel and the speedometer climbed far beyond the posted legal limit. He drove and thought about how backwards it all was and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in anymore that what he found at UCLA Medical Center wouldn’t be as bad as it felt. He had a certain sense for these things. He had never hated how much he had a sense for these things. 

Katya didn’t stop praying as he parked his car crookedly or as he sprinted through the sliding doors to the ER. He halted for a moment once inside the building, trying to get his bearings and realizing that he didn’t in fact know where to find the person he so desperately needed to find. 

He glanced around and saw two nurses chatting casually behind a desk, laughing and joking as though Katya’s heart wasn’t trying to dig a hole in the bone of his ribs and make a full on break for it. 

“You do understand that none of it is actually  _ real _ , right?” one of the nurses raised her eyebrows up towards her blonde hairline.

“Then why would they call it  _ reality _ television, Margaret? Sure it’s hyped up but it’s at least  _ rooted _ in  _ reality _ . That’s the point!” 

“Your obsession with Dance Moms is getting unhealthy and I think it’s time we held an intervention.”

“Only after we discuss your weird thing for Jeff Goldblum.”

“When are you gonna let that go?” Margaret laughed boisterously and Katya tried not to recognize their friendly banter as she rushed over to the nurses’ station. 

“Hi, hello, excuse me,” he leaned against the counter, eyes frantic and everything about him feeling rushed. 

“Can we help you?” Margaret asked. Her scrubs were pink and covered in flowers. They were the kind of scrubs that Doctor Barbie would own, the type of scrubs Trixie would wear if she ever decided to become a nurse. “Sir?”

“Right, um,” Katya faltered, trying to keep his head on track, not an easy feat considering both his predisposed nature to being easily distracted and his current state of mind. “I’m here to pick someone up but I don’t know what room they’re in?”

“We can only give that information to family. Are you a member of this person’s family?”

_ Yes. _

“No, I mean,” Katya floundered. “See, we’re not actually related, but I got a phone call and he said he needed me to pick him up but I can’t exactly pick him up if I don’t know where to find him in this goddamn hospital, so if you could just  _ tell me _ \--” Katya cut himself off when he noticed his own voice rising and saw both of the nurses become suddenly more alert to his presence-- a frantic man yelling at them in a nearly empty hospital at four in the morning. “I’m sorry, just… Please help me.”

Katya watched as both of the women in front of him considered the situation, softening at his pleading tone and the clear level of fear that was radiating off of every inch of his body at this point. 

“What’s your friend’s name? We can’t give you his room number but we can let the nurses up there know you’re here.”

Katya sighed in relief and nearly collapsed on the floor right there. 

“Brian Firkus,” he breathed. “His name is Brian Firkus.”

Nurse Margaret nodded and began typing away at the computer in front of her, clicking and scrolling for a moment before picking up the phone and dialing. 

“Hey, Chris. You’ve got a patient with the last name Firkus up there, right?”

Katya watched on with wide and hopeful eyes as she listened to Chris. 

“Okay, great. Will you let him know that the friend he called is here to pick him up? Thank you,” she hung up the phone and turned back to Katya. “Chris will inform him that you’re here and if he agrees to it, we can send you up.”

“Okay,” Katya breathed. “Okay, thank you.”

She stood there at the nurses’ station for a few moments, awkwardly awaiting a returned phone call that would allow him to successfully complete this journey once and for all. Both nurses sat quietly, a little bit uncomfortable at the tense silence that Katya was putting out into the world, and his consistent inability to stand still.

“So,” the non-Margaret nurse said. “You watch Dance Moms?”

Katya almost laughed at that, felt his lips tug at a sad excuse for a smile, but the phone rang and brought him right back to the reason he couldn’t get comfortable here.

“Hello?” Margaret answered. “Thanks, Chris. Room 207, got it.”

Katya looked to Margaret for confirmation as she hung up the phone.

“207?” He asked, already backing away from the desk. 

“Yes, you can head on up,” Margaret gave Katya a small smile as Katya started speed walking away. “Elevator is in the other direction!” she called after him.

Katya spun on his heel and waved sheepishly in thanks at the nurses as he rushed past them in the other direction and straight to the elevator. 

The fact that Floor 2 was labeled “Trauma” on the sign in the elevator did not help to alleviate any of Katya’s fears, making the already terrible scenarios buzzing around in his head morph into something that was somehow even worse. 

The elevator dinged and the doors opened to reveal an identical nurses’ station to the one below, but Katya didn’t even acknowledge the nurses there, instead clocking the room numbers as he hurried down the hallway. 

The door to room 207 was open a crack when he skidded to a stop in front of it. He felt his heart stutter at the sound of a familiar (and yet oh so new) voice coming from inside the room. 

“I told you everything I know,” Brian sighed. “Can we just be done now?”

“Sorry, sir, but you still haven’t decided whether or not you want to press charges, I’ll need to make note of that,” a woman’s voice filtered through the crack. 

“Look, I don’t know who any of them were and we both know you’re never gonna find ‘em, so can we just call it fucking night so I can get the hell out of this room?”

“Sir--”

“ _ Please _ ,” Brian’s voice cracked.

“Okay,” the woman responded. “But you have my card if you change your mind.”

With that, the door suddenly opened and a police officer slid past Katya with a nod and disappeared down the hallway. Katya took a deep breath, and entered the room. 

He was speechless. 

Brian was looking at the floor, and didn’t notice Katya in the doorway as he pulled on his shoes and zipped up his bag with slow movements that pointed towards tender muscles and aching bones.

Brian was alive, that much Katya could see, but his heart broke at the sight of him nonetheless. Halfway in drag and halfway out, Brian’s face was an abstract painting of foundation and eyeliner that Katya presumed the doctors hadn’t been able to get all the way off. Makeup mixed with dried blood and marbled bruising around a split lip and black eye that simultaneously made Katya sadder and angrier than he’d been in a long time. 

As he watched, Brian shoved a pink dress and blonde wig haphazardly into his backpack, instead dressed in generic gray sweatpants and a t-shirt that he assumed had been provided by the hospital. 

“Fuck,” Katya breathed, not meaning to, wanting to be strong and supportive of whatever it was that was going on but unable to keep the simple expression of aghast horror from slipping out. 

Brian’s head shot up and Katya felt like his heart might stop as he got a better look at the bruised and beaten face in front of him.

Katya started moving towards Brian, who dropped his eyes to the floor, pretending to be busy organizing his bag once more, despite there being no organizing left to do.

“Oh my god, what--”

“Don’t,” Brian choked out. Katya’s hand froze halfway to Brian’s shoulder, suddenly aware of what being touched might be like for him in this situation. “Please don’t ask.”

Katya took a deep breath and lowered his hand back to his side, tucking it into his pocket. 

“Okay,” he said softly, and then moments later: “Can I take you home?”

Brian averted his gaze, still sitting on the edge of the bed and holding his backpack against his chest like a child. He looked afraid.

Afraid and small in such a way that Katya couldn’t help but think that maybe this is what he looked like when he was a kid, in that house, with that man in Wisconsin. 

Katya pushed that thought away, knowing that he couldn’t be the emotional one right now and that for once he had to be Brian’s rock instead of the other way around. This was Brian’s turn to break down and lose control and Katya decided it was time for him to step up. (Of course, he had decided long ago that he would always step up when Brian needed him, but that was beside the point.)

Katya sat down gently on the edge of the bed next to Brian, leaving enough space in between them so they weren’t touching.

“My station wagon’s waiting for us downstairs, Barbara,” Katya said in an affected accent. “It’s got the power of the four horses I’m storing in the trunk.”

Brian was silent and unmoving for a few passing seconds, and Katya thought that maybe his attempt at lightening the mood had been insensitive or misplaced, but then Brian smiled (almost imperceptibly) at the ground.

“It’s called  _ horsepower _ , Linda,” he mocked, a joking tone almost there but not quite heavy enough to decipher. Katya laughed anyway. 

Katya stood up and moved to the door, holding it open and waiting patiently for Brian, letting him take his time with whatever it was he was dealing with. Brian closed his eyes and took a deep breath, stood up, swung his backpack over one shoulder, and walked out the open door towards the nurses’ station. 

“Look, I have a ride,” Brian motioned to Katya who was following close behind. “Will you let me sign the stupid papers now?”

The nurse, Katya assumed this was Chris, chuckled softly and placed a clipboard with a stack of papers on the counter in front of Brian. Katya hoped that the brave face he was putting on for the nurse wouldn’t stick around for too long, that Brian would ultimately be open and honest with Katya so that he could actually get past this. Whatever  _ this _ was. 

It was only when Brian started fumbling with the pen in shaking hands that Katya began to notice how truly shaken up Brian was. He wondered what else there was that he had left to discover about this hellish night. 

When Brian had finished (and had slapped the pen down on the desk in frustration) the two found their way down the elevator, out through the lobby, and into the parking lot where Katya’s car looked as though it had been parked by a fourth grader. Brian didn’t even try to make a joke about it, and it felt a lot like Brian wasn’t even there at all, like his head was in another time and place and that the body that sat down in the passenger seat of Katya’s car was empty of all Trixie-ness. 

“Your place or mine?” Katya asked. Brian shrugged noncommittally, backpack still held tight in his lap. 

Katya bit his lip and looked straight ahead. He started the car and headed towards Brian’s apartment. 

It was closing in on five o’clock as they drove, but the sun had yet to make an appearance behind the mountains of Southern California. Katya drove with both hands on the wheel and glanced over at Brian every few seconds, only to find him frozen in the same position, staring out the window and leaning heavily back into the seat. 

Neither of them spoke over the course of the twenty minute ride (longer than it had taken Katya to get  _ to _ the hospital) and the low hum of the air conditioner sounded like a jet plane flying directly over their heads. 

When Katya parked on the street in front of their destination, Brian got out without saying a word, walking up to the front door as though he assumed Katya would follow. As Katya came up behind Brian, he found him crouched on the ground, digging through his backpack in search of what Katya assumed were his keys. 

“I have a spare,” Katya said, finding the key on his ring. Brian jumped up at the sudden sound and Katya cautiously put his hands up in front of him. Was he trying to calm Brian down? Show him he meant no harm? Katya wasn’t sure, but he hated the way he could see Brian’s hands begin to shake and his body tense. “Here,” Katya handed the key over to Brian, who fumbled to get it into the lock with unsteady hands.

There was only one flight of stairs between the front door and Brian’s apartment, but it took a few labored minutes for Brian to pull himself up it. Katya followed closely behind him, ready to catch him if need be and cataloguing the way Brian was favoring his right side. 

Katya closed the door behind them upon finally entering the apartment, sliding the latch into place and hanging the chain on the door. When he turned around, Brian was standing numbly in the center of the living room, backpack in hand and body heavy, looking as though he didn’t belong even though this was his home. 

Katya gave himself a moment to take a deep breath, collect himself, push away thoughts of murdering whoever had hurt his best friend, and then he stepped forward. 

“Hey,” he said softly, pulling Brian’s gaze to his own with a single syllable, only to find the faint presence of tears not yet ready to fall lingering behind his lashes. “Come here,” Katya reached out and gently took Brian’s hand, guiding him towards the small bathroom. 

Katya had Brian sit down on the edge of the bathtub and began moving around the bathroom like the expert he was. He knew where everything belonged in Brian’s apartment, knew that if he looked in the top drawer on the right hand side of the sink that he’d find the makeup remover wipes he needed.

Brian tugged at the hem of his hospital-provided shirt and took in a few shaky breaths as Katya kneeled down in front of him. Katya held up the soft cloth so Brian could see. 

“I’m just gonna clean you up a little bit, is that okay?”

Brian bit his bottom lip between his teeth and was clearly trying to hold back tears, but he nodded and allowed Katya to start gently wiping away the remnants of his makeup. Katya’s hands moved slowly, carefully around the bruised parts of Brian’s face and the stitches in his lower lip. 

When he was done, he dampened the softest washcloth he could find and patted carefully so that Brian’s skin would feel less oily. Katya knew that this was the least of his worries, but would do anything at this point to help Brian feel even the slightest bit more comfortable. 

Katya stayed on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, looking at where Brian continued to sit with silent unsteadiness. He reached up and slowly took Brian’s hand in his own, driving his attention back to him once again. 

“Let’s get you into your own clothes, and then you can sleep,” Katya suggested. 

Brian opened his mouth as though he was going to say something and Katya’s eyes were glued to him, waiting and hoping and praying that this silence might finally be broken. He could handle screaming and crying, hell, he could handle emotion at its most violent. But instead, Brian shut his mouth once more, looking desperately like he wanted to talk but forcing the words back down his throat. 

“Come on,” Katya conceded, pulling Brian up onto his feet and across the narrow hallway to his bedroom. 

Brian sat stiffly on the bed while Katya dug through his closet to find the comfiest set of pajamas he could find. Katya placed the clothes on the mattress next to Brian and sighed when he refused to acknowledge anything going on around him.

“Trix,” Katya pled. “Would you please try and get some sleep?”

Brian looked down at the neatly folded clothes resting next to him on the bed and let out an exhausted sigh. He picked them up and held them in his lap, running his fingers over the cotton fabric.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. Katya felt some of the tension in his shoulders release at the sound of Brian’s voice, even if it was still so small. 

“Okay, good,” Katya said, moving towards the door. “Get some rest.”

“Are you leaving?” Brian’s head shot up and Katya stopped in the doorway, catching a glimpse of anxiety in Brian’s eyes. 

“I’ll be right out on the couch if you need anything,” Katya assured him. 

Brian nodded. Katya closed the door behind him.

The moment the door to Brian’s bedroom was fully shut, all of the fear and anger and anxiety that Katya had been tucking away sprang right back into his mind and he let out a ragged breath as he collapsed on the couch. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his face fall into his hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as though it might make this nightmare of a journey a little bit clearer.

Eventually, the sun started peeking out from beyond the horizon and Katya decided he should try to get some sleep, so he laid back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, wondering if his mom would be able to get him a good lawyer when he inevitably killed whoever had done this to Brian. 

Time passed slowly as he stayed there, worried to fall asleep and potentially miss Brian getting up or needing help or needing  _ him _ . It was still a new feeling for Katya, being needed. No one had ever relied on him for stability or support, it wasn’t necessarily what he was known for excelling at, but Brian seemed to trust him so fully that it made his heart feel bigger in his chest. Or maybe he just had heart disease, who could be certain?

Katya was so lost in thought that when the door to Brian’s bedroom opened an undetermined amount of time later, he was startled into sitting up. 

There Brian stood, blanket draped over his shoulders like a cape, the morning light filtering in through the windows illuminating his battered frame in a whole new way. 

“Hey,” Katya was hesitant. “What do you need?”

Brian shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears that were clearly there from overflowing and failing as he wiped quickly under his eyes. Katya was up off the couch in an instant and standing in front of Brian, desperately trying to make eye contact.

“Bri, please talk to me,” Katya breathed, voice cracking ever so slightly.

Brian squeezed his eyes shut, held the blanket tighter around his body as though it was the only thing keeping him grounded to reality, and then leaned the few inches forward it took to rest his forehead on Katya’s shoulder. 

Katya lifted his arms to rub Brian’s back immediately, taking this small level of contact as a sign that it was okay for him to touch the shaking form in front of him. 

“They stole my guitar,” Brian said, barely loud enough to hear but with tears in his voice and tears on Katya’s shirt. 

“What?” Katya asked. “Who did?”

“They didn’t take anything else. They didn’t want my wallet or my money--I still have all my goddamn tips-- but they took my fucking  _ guitar _ ,” Brian rambled on, either not hearing Katya or simply not being grounded enough to come up with a succinct answer. 

“We can get a new guitar, it’s okay,” Katya murmured against Brian’s temple, continuing to trace small circles into his blanket-clad shoulder blades. 

Brian stopped speaking after that, simply stood there, clutching onto Katya with the grip of someone holding on for dear life and crying quietly into his chest. Katya took deep breaths, trying to keep his heart rate steady and trying to subtly urge Brian to do the same. His hands were gentle around the younger man’s torso and his fingers were soft as they danced a soothing waltz over the fabric of the blanket. 

After a few minutes of this, a few minutes of Katya searching for answers in hitching breath and the orange of the sunrise as it cast faint shadows across the floor and over their feet, he pulled away.

“You should go back to bed,” Katya whispered the words but they still felt loud enough that they just might shatter the rest of Brian’s heavy bones. 

Brian hadn’t let go of Katya’s shirt and stood staring at his fingers where they had fused to the fabric. 

“Will you stay with me this time?” he asked, voice thick with tears. Katya’s ribs felt too small to hold both his heart and his lungs simultaneously.

“Of course.”   
  
Katya gently pried Brian’s hands away from his shirt, holding onto one as he led him back into the bedroom and under the covers. Katya made sure that Brian was comfortable in bed, watching him wince as he situated his aching body in between the sheets

As soon as Katya slid into bed next to Brian, both men lying quietly on their backs, Brian reached out and fumbled to hold his hand. Katya intertwined their fingers and rolled onto his side to look at the bruised and swollen face on the pillow next to his. He pulled Brian’s hand up to his face and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles, watching as Brian squeezed silent tears out of his eyes. 

“I’m right here,” Katya let out in a breath. “Just go to sleep, I’m not going anywhere.”

Brian took a shaky breath and tightened his grip on Katya’s hand, closing his eyes and searching for sleep behind tired eyelids. Katya continued to stroke his thumb over Brian’s knuckles until he noticed the other man’s body relax into the mattress and his breathing even out. 

Only then did Katya let out a shaky breath, let a few silent tears fall, and let himself drift into a restless sleep. 

The sun burned in the sky with questions only the stars had answers to.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian was fine. He was fine, he was okay, and the fact that he couldn’t catch his breath was more a sign that he needed to work out more than anything else. He really believed that. He had to believe that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm posting these two first chapters at once because they were already up anyways so some of you have read both already lmao
> 
> most of the warnings tagged for this fic are in this chapter so please take care of yourselves, love you all 
> 
> thank you for reading and feel free to let me know what you think either here or on tumblr @ourforgottenboleros ! <3

_ Post-show adrenaline. _

_ A burned-out lamppost. _

_ Tired eyes. _

_ Heels on an uneven sidewalk. _

_ It had been a good night, a night of loud music and an enthusiastic audience. Trixie had gotten to play a number of her own, original songs--something she was still getting used to but didn’t think would ever get old.  _

_ It had been a good night as she left the venue with a smile on her painted face, deciding to de-drag once she got home because there wasn’t a shower in this particular club and she really wanted a hot shower as soon as she got out of that sweaty pink dress.  _

_ Her uber had needed to park a little farther down the street because parking in Los Angeles is never not a nightmare. He was maybe a sum total of a block and a half away, but Trixie didn’t mind. It was nice out, with a cool breeze breaking the heat of the day and the mugginess of the club she had just left behind.  _

_ So, with a backpack full of tips, make up, and boy clothes, and a pristine guitar case that came with the shiny new instrument he’d bought mere months ago, Trixie Mattel clicked her heels confidently down the sidewalk.  _

_ It wasn’t necessarily the best part of town, but it also wasn’t the worst. For every burned out lamppost, there was an expensive sports car parked on the street. She was maybe halfway to the car when she first heard it.  _

_ “Dude, look at that,” a deep voice said from behind her.  _

_ “Shit, man,” another, clearly drunk man responded. “What kinda world do we live in where they can just walk around like that?” _

_ Trixie felt her heart sink and started walking a little bit faster, hand gripping her guitar case tighter.  _

_ “Hey, faggot!” the first voice called after her, closer now. “Where you think you’re goin’ dressed like that?” _

_ Trixie definitely sped up at that, shoulders tense up around her ears and head hanging low as if they hadn’t already seen her.  _

_ “Why’re you ignorin’ us, pretty lady? We just wanna chat!” _

_ They were uncomfortably close and Trixie’s heart was cold in her chest as she searched for her uber uselessly.  _

_ “Yeah, princess, why don’t you come over for a nice cup of tea!” _

_ Trixie barely had time to think through an exit strategy before a gruff hand was spinning her around and a fist was connecting roughly with her cheekbone. The impact knocked her backwards on her heels, tumbling to the rough concrete of the sidewalk and ripping holes in her dress and tights.  _

_ She hadn’t caught her breath yet when she felt a boot imprinting it’s toe in her stomach, knocking the wind out of her completely. Trixie gasped for air as the men above her shouted slurs and threw punches, anger oozing off of them in waves.  _

_ She felt herself scream and she felt herself cry but she couldn’t feel her own body anymore. She was lost and confused and overwhelmed by the cacophony of sensations she was drowning in.  _

_ And then they were gone. _

_ In a matter of minutes two men had entered her life, torn her apart, and left with her heart in the shape of a guitar.  _

_ Tears streamed down her face as she fumbled with her backpack with shaking hands. _

_ She called an ambulance.   _

Brian decided not to take time off from work. 

“I wear enough makeup to cover anything anyway,” he had told Katya as he tossed the torn and dirtied pink nightgown that had been crunched into a ball in his backpack for four days into the garbage can. 

“Brian--”

“Don’t  _ Brian _ me,” he had rolled his eyes at where Katya sat on his couch. “We have a big show with everyone tonight. I’m not gonna miss it just because my wrist is a little sore.”

“Does it still hurt?”  


“ _ Katya _ .”

They hadn’t talked in detail about what had happened yet. Brian woke up midday the day after his hospital visit with aching joints and bruises that made his skin feel like it was on fire and Katya had woken up with fear in his chest and anger in his heart. 

Every time Katya tried to subtly get answers out of him, Brian would change the subject, make a joke, or find any excuse to leave the room immediately. 

“Trixie, will you please just sit down for a  _ minute _ ,” Katya begged two days post-hospital as Brian ran around Katya’s apartment, cleaning it in a whirlwind of what was clearly an obsessive coping strategy. Katya would know, he had been there plenty of times, after all. 

“Do you even own a vacuum?” Brian asked, head stuck in Katya’s linen closet. 

“You’re gonna have to talk about it eventually,” Katya sighed.

“Talk about what? How you live like a goblin person?”

“Jesus Christ, mama.”

Brian was apparently scary good at covering up bruises, at pretending like he wasn’t in pain when he very clearly had to be. It made Katya’s stomach twist, but Brian just let himself go through the motions, keep pushing forward, blatantly ignore the piece of his brain that felt like the very fibers of his DNA were splitting apart and dissolving upon contact with the air. 

He thought that he was fine, he really truly did without any sort of posturing involved at all. It was either that or he was so good at pretending that he’d tricked even himself into believing his shaking hands were a sign of over caffeination and definitely, most certainly, absolutely not trauma. So, it was only subconsciously that he wasn’t okay, with tics and mannerisms that Katya was slowly but surely cataloguing in the recesses of his brain.

“How is your fridge completely empty?” Katya asked three days post-non-traumatic-trauma. His head popped out from behind the door to a fridge that held nothing but ketchup and an old carton of leftover Chinese takeout. 

Brian was sitting at his kitchen table, scrolling through his phone unresponsively. 

“Trix,” Katya tried again, still not getting a response. “ _ Trixie Mattel _ .” Still nothing.

Katya sighed and let the door to the refrigerator shut with an unexpected slam that sent Brian jumping out of his skin and dropping his phone. It clattered onto the surface of the table and Brian felt like his heart was trying to actually drag race (the kind with real cars and not a bunch of clowns in dresses). 

He was fine, he was really okay, he was just hearing loud noises that weren’t there and that was completely normal he  _ swears _ .

_ Slamming car doors. _

_ Loud voices. _

_ Screaming. _

_ Yelling. _

_ Begging.  _

“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand through his non-existent hair as his breathing stuttered and his hands visibly shook. 

“Shit, Trix, I’m sorry,” Katya rushed to his side and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder which Brian promptly shrugged away from. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Brian responded, standing up and tugging at his shirt. “I’m fine.”

_ Loud, louder voices. _

_ Loss of wind, loss of sight. _

_ Tears on faces and tears in dresses.  _

“Trixie--” Katya barely had time to formulate a thought before the other man had exited the kitchen and locked himself in his bedroom. 

Brian was fine. He was fine, he was okay, and the fact that he couldn’t catch his breath was more a sign that he needed to work out more than anything else. He really believed that. He had to believe that. 

The fact that he couldn’t keep himself from sobbing on the floor in his bedroom despite knowing that Katya was right on the other side of the wall was not something to be concerned about. Sometimes a person just had to cry for no reason and that was  _ okay, _ that was  _ fine _ . 

He needed, desperately, to be okay. And so he was. 

Which is why, just a few days later and less than a full week after the Incident, he was ready ( _ really ready, I promise, Kat _ ) to be back on stage as if nothing had even happened.

Yes, maybe Katya had been spending the night at his apartment because he couldn’t quite sleep through the night yet and yes, maybe he could feel his skin crawl and his breathing hitch every time someone touched him, but no, that did not mean that he wasn’t still Trixie fucking Mattel and that he wouldn’t be up on that stage like he was supposed to be. 

He was already wearing a full face of foundation when he arrived in the dressing room he was to share with a number of other queens, not that any of them would have clocked the amount of time he had put into properly covering even the smallest sign of yellowing bruises that still splashed across his features like a twisted Jackson Pollock painting. Trixie Mattel was a makeup artist after all. 

He cracked jokes like usual and forced the unsteadiness out of his voice, forced his hand to be stable as he painted on eyeliner. Katya was in a nearby dressing room, a fact that Brian was almost grateful for so that he could just focus on getting ready and not on the concerned eyes that carried his secrets for him. 

He got dressed in the bathroom. No one needed to see the purple landscape that his right set of ribs had become or how much effort it took to pad when bending over made his lungs burn. It was his first time getting into drag  _ after _ , and at the sight of Trixie Mattel in the bathroom mirror he could feel his stomach twist uncomfortably. 

He pushed it down and joined the other girls in the dressing room. 

“Someone feeling a little shy tonight?” Courtney teased from where she was pulling on a dress that hugged every part of her body with ease. 

“I’m just feeling a little fat tonight and I’d appreciate it if you’d respect that,” Trixie put on a nasally whine of a voice and felt that her acting skills were getting pretty great when the other girls in the room laughed. 

_ Bitter laughter.  _

_ Angry laughter. _

_ Voices. _

_ Yelling.  _

_ So much yelling _ .

“Trixie!” 

Trixie’s brain jumped back into reality with a nervous energy that she was not entirely fond of. 

“Yeah?” she cleared her throat as she turned around to see Adore standing in the doorway. 

“You gotta get backstage, you’re up next, babe,” Adore informed her before continue her trek down the tiled hallway of the venue. 

“Right, yeah,” Trixie made final adjustments in the mirror, fidgeting with her fingers and feeling like there was somehow more air in her lungs than there should have been at any given moment in time. 

Trixie Mattel was a performer, and while lip syncing had never been her favorite part of drag, it was something she liked to think she was good at. She could put on a show as good as anyone and she could entertain like nobody’s business. 

It was just one number. One set that she’d done a hundred times before and could nail in her sleep and it really shouldn’t have been a big deal at all. 

So why was it such a big deal when the lights were in her eyes? 

Why was it such a big deal when the crowd was screaming and yelling and singing along?

_ “Yeah, princess, why don’t you come over for a nice cup of tea!” _

Why did it matter when her hand brushed another as she accepted a tip?

_ “Why’re you ignorin’ us, pretty lady? We just wanna chat!” _

Why did she feel like she was dying when hand after hand after hand reached out and touched her as if she’d given them permission?

_ “Hey, faggot! Where you think you’re goin’ dressed like that?” _

At some point during the song she stopped being present. She wasn’t sure when, wasn’t aware of the final straw but all of a sudden she stopped hearing the music and all she could hear were those  _ voices _ , the ones that melded together with the voice of another that she hadn’t heard in years. 

_ “You little fuckin’ trixie, who do you think you are?!” _

She felt her lungs contract and her heart pound in overdrive and could physically feel every injury on her body as if they were standing up in unison and making themselves known. At first her brain was just occupied with that night and her stolen guitar, the feeling of asphalt as it tore through her tights and the rhythmic pounding of fists in her bones.

At first it was at least relatively logical as her entire sense of self went back to a week previously and experienced the pain of it all over again. But then she was fifteen and then she was thirteen and then she was the eleven-year-old boy who had to stay home from school because if the teachers saw the broken blood vessels in his eye paired with a colorful bouquet of bruises on his face then they would most certainly have questions that he couldn’t answer. 

She wasn’t sure if she had even finished the lip sync as she rushed off the stage and back into the wings. 

“Good job, girl!” Courtney called out, but Trixie didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. 

Her hands were shaking violently and she couldn’t breathe, she had actually, genuinely, forgotten how to breathe and she barely had any concept or where she was or what was happening or who she was in that moment. 

She didn’t stop moving, didn’t acknowledge the bodies that passed her in the hall except to dodge their hands and keep them from touching her (why did everyone have to  _ touch _ her all the time?)

And then she was back in the dressing room and picking up the nearest trash can as she heaved what little she had eaten in the past few days up and out of her throat. Trixie leaned sideways and slid down the wall. She held onto the brim of the trashcan, eyes squeezed shut as her breathing became somehow even more labored. Her knuckles were white and if she could have heard anything in that moment she would have heard Adore say something about a  _ panic attack _ .

Someone placed a gentle hand on her back and she didn’t give a shit how gentle it was, she didn’t  _ want _ it. She shoved it off of her, shoved it away and pressed her back up against the wall because at least then no one could sneak up on her again.

Her eyes were glued to the ground in front of her and her hands were shaking and all she could think about was how she wasn’t even sure if she’d finished her goddamn number. 

“Trixie,” it was Adore, that much she could make out. “Trixie, what’s wrong? Girl, you’re scaring us. What do you need?”

Trixie pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, certainly smearing makeup and ruining whatever illusion she had built up for herself that evening. 

“Trixie,” Adore said again, resting a hand on Trixie’s knee.

“Don’t-- don’t,” Trixie stuttered. “Don’t  _ touch _ \-- Don’t fucking  _ touch me _ .”

“Okay, okay,” Adore took her hand back quickly, glancing at Bianca who stood behind her with worried eyes. 

“You gotta tell us what you need, honey,” Bianca said in probably the softest voice Bianca had ever used for anyone save Adore. 

“Just--I just,” Trixie got mad at herself for not being able to formulate a proper sentence and let out a guttural groan. “Katya-- Please, I need-- I--  _ Katya _ .”

“Alright, we’re on it,” Adore said right as Courtney dashed out of the room and let the door fall shut behind her. 

Katya was in the process of de-dragging when Courtney threw open the door to the dressing room in a flurry. Katya had never seen Courtney flustered, never knew that a woman so poised could ever be anything but cool, calm, and collected. 

“In a hurry there, Barbara?” Katya teased, pulling a t-shirt on with her jeans but with a face still fully made up. 

“Katya, we need you to come right now,” Courtney said. 

“Oh, I don’t know if I can do that on comman--”

“Trixie needs help.”

Trixie was losing all sight of where she was, not sure what the sounds of commotion around her meant or why she couldn’t stop crying with her back pressed up against a concrete wall. There was no ground beneath her, only a gaping void that she was free falling towards the bottom of. 

“Everyone get out.”

Trixie heard the faint sound of a voice, far away and yet so close, and then there was a presence crouching in front of her.

“Trix,” Katya said softly, not touching her, not yet. And moments later, addressed to the other queens in the room: “I know you want to help, but you really have to leave if this is gonna stop.”

“You heard the woman.” It was Bianca that time, ever the level-headed one. 

The door clicked softly behind them and the room was suddenly still, the air heavy with Trixie’s labored breathing and as tense as the muscles in her shoulders. 

“It’s just us,” Katya whispered. “It’s just me.”

Trixie couldn’t stop shaking. 

“Fuck, fuck me,” she choked into the fabric of her tights where her knees were pulled up to her chin, heels discarded somewhere to the side and leaving her stockinged feet feeling bare against the floor. “I fucking--I can’t -- I--  _ fuck _ .”

“Listen to me,” Katya’s voice was steady. Coherent. “Don’t try to talk yet just listen, okay?”

Trixie nodded, still not looking up to meet Katya’s gaze. 

“You are Brian Firkus, currently in drag as Trixie Mattel,” Katya began, iterating what was reality, what was the truth for someone that truly had lost all sight of it. “I am Brian McCook. I am also partially in drag as Katya. You are backstage at a drag show. You are Brian Firkus. You’re having a panic attack, but you’re going to survive it.”

Trixie took a deep breath, the air feeling like it was stumbling down a mile-long staircase before it ever reached her lungs. Without looking up, she reached out one of her hands and grasped to hold onto Katya, whatever she could reach. She ended up holding onto the front of her shirt with an awkward death grip, but Katya got the message and sat down against the wall next to her friend. 

“C’mere,” she said softly, wrapping a gentle arm around Trixie’s shoulders. Trixie just melted into her touch, letting her head fall into Katya’s chest and sobbing. “You’re safe, I’ve got you. I’m right here,” Katya murmured, tracing circles into Trixie’s back. 

“Everyone kept touching me, they wouldn’t stop touching me, Kat,” Trixie let the words start falling out of her mouth and once she started she didn’t know how to stop.

“I know, I know.”

“And they weren’t trying to hurt me and I know that, I really know that,” she knew she was getting makeup all over Katya’s shirt but she didn’t have the energy to care. “But all I could feel were their  _ hands _ and it was like it was happening all over again.”

“They’re not here, no one can hurt you now, I promise,” Katya gently pulled Trixie’s wig off, setting it on the floor next to them and giving Trixie just a bit more space to breathe without all of that hair in her face. 

“They were so loud and I tried to ignore them,” Trixie continued, the narrative of her story not fully developed but instead stumbling out in a jagged arc. “They were just so  _ loud _ and I should have known how to--how to defend--defend myself,” her breathing got unsteady again and Katya pulled her face away from her chest.

“Slow down--”

“I should have gotten out of drag before I left the club but I didn’t and they  _ hated _ me--Katya they--they fucking hated everything about me and the things--the things they said--”

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Katya urged and Trixie did so reluctantly. “Breathe. Okay, just breathe and then you can tell me all about it.”

Trixie’s makeup was melting as they sat there, eyelashes on her cheeks and eyeliner smudged against shadow. The paint on her face looked a lot less like a meticulously designed doll and more like Picasso’s version of a woman, still beautiful, but unsettling all the same. 

Trixie released her grip on the front of Katya’s shirt, leaving one hand pressed to her chest and lifting the other to run a thumb over Katya’s cheekbone. 

“I’m sorry,” Trixie breathed, hiccupping on her slowing tears ever so slightly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me, not after,” Katya shook her head. “Not after everything I’ve leaned on your shoulder through. I’m here, I’ll always be here.”

Trixie nodded tearfully, knowing this was true, knowing that her and Katya were stuck together for life no matter what happened. It was a fact that she found a lot of comfort in, knowing that Katya would be there in some capacity no matter what. 

“What are you feeling?” Katya asked carefully, wiping a stray tear from Trixie’s pink cheeks. 

“I feel like a child,” Trixie laughed bitterly. 

“You aren’t a child for getting upset--”

“No, Katya,” Trixie insisted. “I feel like I’m twelve years old and finding excuses to not go home from school because who knows how much he’s had to drink and the shirt I wore today is bordering on  _ faggy _ and just--I feel like that kid again,” Trixie pulled away from Katya completely, picking up her wig and working through tangles absentmindedly with her fingers. 

Realization dawned on Katya and her mouth fell open ever so slightly.

Of course that’s what this was, of course getting assaulted would send Trixie back to that part of her life, helpless and defenseless and stuck in a house where she wasn’t safe. Of course the bruises marring every inch of her skin would make her feel like she was back in that place, a child who couldn’t hit back for fear of how much worse it would get.

“I need to get out of this dress,” Trixie muttered to herself, suddenly hating the feeling of the pink fabric against her skin and the weight of the pads on her hips and chest. 

“Yeah, get changed and I’ll take you home,” Katya suggested, standing up and offering a hand to Trixie who didn’t seem to be making any moves of getting up. “Trixie?”

“They’re all gonna know now,” she said to her wig quietly. 

“They know you had a panic attack,” Katya sat back on her heels in front of Trixie. “They don’t ever have to know why if you don’t want them to. God knows you’ve kept far worse secrets for me. All my skeletons are hanging in your closet at this point, the least I can do is store some of yours.”

Trixie lifted her gaze and saw the earnest certainty in Katya’s eyes, thought back to the relapses and late night phone calls that only existed in the space between their two existences. She nodded deftly. 

No one asked as she and Katya left the venue and no one showed either of them the video that was already up on Twitter of Trixie swatting a fan’s hand away from her before leaving the stage even as the final bars of the song were still playing. 

Katya watched Alaska clock the bruises on Trixie’s face, now makeup-free and puffy against her tired skin. The look Katya gave her said enough to keep her quiet with a stiff jaw and sudden protective anger for a queen she only really knew in passing. 

Trixie ultimately made Katya go home.

They pulled up outside of Trixie’s apartment and she insisted that Katya had to still be allowed to live her own life, go back to her home and sleep in her own bed without worrying that Trixie was going to go completely off the rails. 

Katya wasn’t necessarily pleased with this situation, but agreed under the condition that Trixie would call her in the morning-- a check-in rule that had started years ago after a particularly bad three day bender that ended in a dozen missed phone calls and a screaming match that they would both regret.

Brian dropped his bags unceremoniously by the front door as he entered, locking it once, twice, three times over and then turning the handle to make sure it was actually locked properly.  Fully out of drag and fully exhausted, he found a pack of beer in the kitchen and cracked open a bottle with the magnet that hung on his fridge. 

He curled up in the corner of his couch, knowing that it was nearly two in the morning but having given up on even trying to sleep days ago. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and scrolled aimlessly through a hefty stack of notifications that he had no intention of responding to. 

 

**_From: Adore Delano (1:32 a.m.)_ **

_ dude are you okay? everyone’s super worried _

 

**_From: Kim Chi (1:20 a.m.)_ **

_ girl, twitter is going crazy. what’s going on? _

 

**_From: Shea Coulee (1:15 a.m.)_ **

_ the internet seems to think something happened to you _

_ did something happen? will you at least let me know you’re okay, bitch? _

 

Brian sighed at his phone, grateful for friends good enough to be concerned but not wanting even a little bit of said concern to be directed at him and his pathetic meltdown of a night. He almost cleared the notifications when he noticed one last conversation at the bottom. 

 

**_From: Unknown Number (1:05 a.m.)_ **

_ it’s alaska, i got your number from adore.  _

_ listen i don’t know who did that to you but give me a name and i’ll handle it, girl _

 

Brian locked his phone and tossed it to the other side of the couch. With all of these messages he couldn’t bring himself to even consider opening Twitter, figuring it was probably best to stay in the dark for as long as possible, drink himself into a stupor so he might actually get some sleep, and ignore the fact that he had a week of bookings coming up that he was actually  _ afraid _ of for the first time in his life. 

He felt like he was unravelling and he had no idea how to stop the process or sew back together the pieces of him that were slipping away. He sipped at his beer, downing it in a matter of minutes with his head hanging heavy against the back of the couch, and wondered if he could ever get back to being who he was, or worse, if this was who he had always been.

He had another beer, and then another, bottle caps strewn across his coffee table and bottles lying haphazardly on the floor of his living room, and eventually he was buzzed enough to push the demons back just far enough to find a little bit of peace. It was only then that his autoharp caught his attention, leaning against the wall on the other side of the room.

Brian liked to play the guitar to calm down, and considering his guitar-- the one he’d bought with the money he made from his first album-- was gone, he figured he could keep trying to teach himself how to play the new instrument. 

He was too tipsy to really be successful at it, but not tipsy enough that he wasn’t able to hit a few cords of a messy melody. It was new, nothing he’d played before and something he figured he’d forget by morning, but he let himself absorb the sound of it all the same. 

He played until his fingers were tired and his eyes began to droop. He fell asleep on the couch at four in the morning without ever worrying to check his phone. 

On the other side of town, Katya was just as awake for most of the night.

He couldn’t get the image of Trixie collapsed in a heap of tears and hyperventilation on the floor of that dressing room out of his goddamn head. Sure, they had been to hell and back together, had seen each other at their worst and best and everywhere in between.

Katya knew Trixie’s history, hell, Katya knew more about the relatively private queen than most other people on the planet. But none of that could prepare him for having to endure a breakdown like that.  _ That _ was new.

Brian Firkus had his issues, had the things that popped up on dark days and sometimes made adult human functioning difficult, but the thing about Brian Firkus was, he always handled them internally.

It was rare that Katya ever saw him externalize his feelings, be open and honest and  _ loud _ about whatever was eating away at his head on any given day. And yet, that was exactly what had happened, wasn’t it? Brian had broken down and sobbed and panicked very publicly as if he had lost all control. 

Katya knew how much Brian hated feeling like he’d lost control, and Katya was actually  _ angry _ that he’d had to do just that.

Even more so, Katya was angry that there were people who would even dare to hurt his best friend, that anyone would have the audacity to manipulate his psyche like that. Katya had always silently vowed to have words with the man that made Brian’s childhood miserable if they were to ever meet, and he added a list of nameless, faceless assailants to that vow the moment he picked Brian up at the hospital one week previously. 

And so it was pretty clear why Katya wasn’t sleeping that night, with a brain running faster than it had since he’d gotten sober. What he did next might not have been fully thought through, and might not have been the greatest idea he’d ever had, but he needed to get the words out of his brain and if this was his only option then so be it.

“Wait, fuck, how do I turn comments off,” he said, fumbling with his phone with one hand as what was probably his tenth cigarette of the night dangled from his other. “Okay, there, yeah… Don’t need you guys chiming in on this one.”

He balanced his phone on the windowsill and leaned back against the railing of the small balcony, taking a long drag from his cigarette. 

“Listen, okay, I don’t--I don’t know what I’m trying to impart here, it’s not like… this isn’t-- I just have a lot of words and I need to put them in some sort of order if I’m ever gonna make sense of them, alright?”

He took a deep breath, listening to the sounds of the city below him. 

“I’m a drag queen, right? That’s a thing that I do--I definitely do  _ that _ , and it’s this whole familial bond type situation. Especially with Ru girls it’s like--it’s like we’re meant to work together but also be family to each other? So if your work friends are your family and you work with your family, your social circle is pretty small, and let me tell you,” he was talking with his hands now, face and eyes as expressive as ever. “Let me tell you, girl, that shit puts you in a  _ bubble _ . We’re all in a bubble! That’s it, that’s our life! We don’t always get along but we have this  _ bond _ and we forget that there are people  _ outside _ of our little drag queen enclosure at the zoo, that there are people watching us and judging us and sometimes people that even  _ hate us! _ ”

Katya’s voice got increasingly frantic as he figured out what he was trying to say, what it was he was feeling. 

“And bitch, it’s wild--it’s really fucking wild-- because we let ourselves forget that we’re in the bubble! Sure, we all know it’s there, but it’s easier for us if we just let it exist, let it happen, let ourselves believe that everything is as comfortable as the bubble makes us think. So what happens then when the bubble pops, you may ask.  _ Katya, what happens when the fucking bubble pops? _ Well, I’ll tell you because the bubble sure has popped, sis.”

Katya went to take another drag from his cigarette but noticed he only held a butt in between his fingers. He pulled out a fresh one from the pack resting on the windowsill next to his phone and lit it before he continued to speak. 

“The bubble pops and then you’re tossed back into the real world head first--y’know, the one where people still hate you and and everything you stand for?” he shrugged bitterly at that. 

“And all of a sudden, everything you thought you knew about acceptance and love and progress? Poof! Gone!” he snapped his fingers. “Just like that, it’s out the window and you have to learn how to cope with it, learn how to accept the fact that people still use the words we’ve reclaimed with vitriol and violence-- _ violence, bitch! _ Actual, physical violence!”

Katya continued to puff away at his cigarette spouting smoke alongside his words like the two were sisters.

“And guess what? Just guess,  _ guess _ , Barbara,” he continued. “The fact that we’re in a bubble makes it all the easier for you to  _ treat us _ like we’re in a bubble, like we’re some playthings that you get to treat however you fancy. Well, newsflash, bitch! We’re human beings!” 

Katya caught himself then, cutting himself off with another long, shaky exhale of smoke. He slowed down and ran a hand over his face with clear exhaustion. 

“Fucking hell,” he sighed. “Fuck this, fuck you, fuck me-- This is ridiculous, I can’t believe I did this,” he shook his head and reached out for his phone, fumbling with it for a moment before he was able to turn the livestream off. “Fuck.”

Brian woke up late the next morning with one leg hanging off the couch and his face pressed uncomfortably against the upholstery of his sofa. He groaned loudly as he cracked open his eyes against the bright light shining through the window. 

He pulled himself off of the couch with a great deal of effort and stumbled to the bathroom in hopes of washing the taste of stale beer out of his mouth. 

It was a new day, but as he caught sight of himself in the mirror with a face full of bruises that were yellowing around the edges and bags under his eyes big enough to carry all the drag he could potentially need to travel with on tour, he realized that nothing had really changed. 

He still felt different, maybe just broken, but certainly off balance. Nothing in his life made sense and he could barely keep himself asleep for more than four or five hours at a time. He brushed his teeth and tried not to look in the mirror, spitting out toothpaste mixed with a little bit of fear and a touch of anxiety.

Brian didn’t bother to change his clothes before he fell back into his spot on the couch. He squirmed when he felt the hard edges of his phone pressing into his back and pulled it out from under him reluctantly. 

He scrolled from top to bottom, scanning over messages that he didn’t have the energy or desire to respond to any time soon. He assumed they would all continue to be about his very public breakdown the night before, but furrowed his brow in confusion at a few that seemed to be about something entirely different.

 

**_From: Kim Chi (9:00 a.m.)_ **

_ if you and katya are both going full crazy then who’s flying the plane? _

_ please respond to me, girl. i’m here for you.  _

 

**_From: Ginger (9:45 a.m.)_ **

_ you talked to katya at all? she’s not responding to me and she was all weird on periscope last night. _

 

Brian didn’t feel too concerned, considering Katya was never  _ not  _ weird on periscope, but knowing the context of the night before, felt like maybe he was more than a little responsible for whatever brand of weird his friends were referring to. 

It was for exactly that reason that Brian hadn't let Katya stay with him the night before. He knew that Katya would do anything for him, would slit his own wrists if he thought it would help Brian get better, and he just couldn't let him run himself into the ground just because Brian was an unsolvable mess. 

Amongst the other messages was one from Shea containing a YouTube link and the plea to  _ please talk to each other. _

Brian knew what it was before he ever clicked on it, but was still shaken when he saw just how unsteady Katya was in the video, chain smoking and rambling and essentially defending his honor. Brian chewed on the side of his thumb as he watched and didn't bother to try and stop himself, an old bad habit resurfacing being the least of his worries at this point. 

As the video ended and the camera got closer to Katya's face when he tried to turn it off, Brian got a better look at just how tired the other man looked. His heart sank with guilt and although logically he knew that none of it was really his fault, he couldn't help but think that Katya just might be better off without all this extra drama. He'd been through enough in his life already as it was. 

Brian exited out of the video and sent a simple message to Shea in response:  _ i’m the last thing she needs. _

He was about to turn his phone off, toss it away again and try to forget about the way Katya's eyes had somehow been filled with sadness and anger and softness all at once until he realized he still had more notifications. 

Of course, right at the top of the pile:

 

**_From: Katya (10:02 a.m.)_ **

_ how are you? _

_ check in when you get up please _

_ girl i need to hear that you’re alive and well _

 

Brian sighed and hesitated before typing back a simple message that said it all:  _ alive. _

He let his head fall back against the couch and closed his eyes, exhausted despite having been awake for less than an hour. It felt like his phone was sinking deep into his chest where it rested, creating a crater where his motivation used to be. Brian lifted a hand to rub at his tired eyes but winced when he pressed down just a little too hard on the yet-to-be-healed bruises. 

He wished that he could just fall asleep and wake up a year and a half later with everything sorted and his brain fixed and no more fucked up flashbacks infiltrating his consciousness at the worst possible moments. 

He wished he could just stop existing for a little while. 

But then his phone started buzzing on his chest and he realized that the real world didn’t stop moving forward just because he’d forgotten how. 

“Yeah?” he answered the phone without bothering to look at the caller ID, eyes still pressed shut. 

“Hey, Tracy.”

Brian felt his heart jump at the sound of Katya’s voice. He inhaled deeply through his nose but couldn’t find the right words to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. 

“You there, Trix?” Katya’s voice was soft on the other end of the line. 

“Yeah,” Brian breathed.

“What’s going on?” Katya continued, clearly able to hear the distress in Brian’s voice. “Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”

A part of him did, a big part of him really really wanted Katya to be there with him so he could curl up against his side and hold his hand and all the while remind himself that he was real. 

“You don’t have to worry so much,” he said instead. 

“Right,” Katya said after a quiet beat. They both knew he wouldn’t stop worrying so much. 

They were both silent for a moment, and Brian found comfort simply in the sound of Katya’s breathing on the other end of the line. 

“Brian,” Katya spoke up eventually, using his real name to prove seriousness, sincerity. “Listen, okay, I know that me being the grounding force between the two of us is new… for both of us… but please just,” he sighed. “Please don’t shut me out.”

Brian felt tears welling at the back of his eyes, his chest growing tight, and his hands begin to shake ever so slightly. He pictured Katya sitting on his balcony, smoking a cigarette to try and keep his voice steady with his phone pressed to his ear.

He bit his lip to keep from crying. 

“Never.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You gotta stop defending my honor online or people’re gonna talk,” Brian slurred ever so slightly, just tipsy enough that Katya could hear it in his voice.
> 
> “Sorry to inform you,” Katya chuckled. “But I think that ship has long sailed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back to hell, i'll be your guide (alternatively: thanks for sticking with this if you're still here, i appreciate it <3)

“Could you please just tell them I’m sick?” Brian groaned and leaned back in the entirely too uncomfortable wooden chair. “Or that a doctor said I can’t fly or some shit?”

“Trixie, you can’t give venues less than a week’s notice--”

“Lucy, it’s not like I want to do this,” Brian cut her off, arms crossed tight across his chest with so much tension he thought he might be able to snap his own spine.

“Then don’t!” his manager suggested with raised eyebrows and a warm smile. “So you’ve got a couple of bruises? We tell ‘em you got mugged-- because it’s true-- and boom! People want to see your show even more.”

Brian rolled his eyes at that. He’d told Lucy the simplest version of what had happened, just enough so she would stop asking about the bruises that continued to fade slower than he would have liked.

“I’m not doing the shows,” Brian said flatly. “That’s it.”

“People are going to be pissed that they bought tickets and you’re not showing up,” Lucy cocked her head to the side as if she was relying entirely new information to Brian.

“Jesus, Luc. Just give them their money back! I couldn’t care less,” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“This is a bad decision for you, Trixie--”

“Yeah, well at least it’s my decision.”

He stood up and grabbed his backpack, slinging it over one shoulder and storming out the door before Lucy had a chance to protest again. He knew he couldn’t do it, had had a panic attack the night before just _thinking_ about getting up on a stage again, and nothing his manager said was going to be able to change his mind at this point.

He hadn’t discussed it with anyone and had barely thought it through before he’d pushed his way into an unscheduled meeting with Lucy that morning, but he was jittery and knew he needed to be packing if he was going to get on a flight to do a show in Kentucky in two days so, a last minute decision it was.

Katya didn’t know yet, although he _had_ suggested that Brian take time off in practically every conversation they’d had over the course of the past few days (all of which were forced check ins because Katya simply wasn’t convinced that Brian was even a little bit okay. Brian didn’t have the heart to tell him he was right.)

Brian stopped in front of the elevators, pressing the button impatiently as he watched the numbers tick up slowly from the ground floor.

“Tracy Martel,” an approaching voice droned from behind him. Brian spun around, startled at first, before he caught sight of the deeply unthreatening Alaska out of drag.

“Oh, uh, hey,” he responded less than eloquently. He hadn’t planned on running into anyone he knew, but he should have known better considering how many queens were managed through this particular agency.

“How’s life treating you?” Alaska asked without any note of pity in her voice. For that at least Brian was grateful, but he was also suddenly very aware that he hadn’t even bothered to try covering up his bruises before leaving the house.

“Y’know,” Brian shrugged. “The usual.”

Alaska chuckled at that, nodding as if to say _don’t I know it_.

The elevator dinged and both men stepped into the empty space, taking a nearly silent and somewhat awkward trip down to the lobby.

As soon as the doors opened, Brian was ready to make his escape, retreat back to his apartment where he could drink the fresh beer he’d bought the day before and hopefully get plastered enough to chill out for a few hours.

Alaska, however, had other ideas.

“Hey, you wanna grab coffee?” she asked as they moved towards the front doors. Brian paused, looking up at Alaska with confusion. They barely knew each other, they were acquaintances at best, and Brian really didn’t want to run the risk of seeing anyone else. But then again, he _didn’t_ know Alaska and that meant she didn’t have any expectations, no preconceived notions of who he was, and no stock in making sure he wasn’t on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Maybe he’d been spending too much time locked up alone in his apartment. Maybe this would actually, could actually, have the potential to be a good thing.

“Fuck it, sure.”

As it turned out, Brian and Alaska got along better than he ever would have thought. Alaska seemed unbothered by Brian’s sour mood and had patience with how much he seemed to be thinking through everything carefully before he said it.

She didn’t comment when Brian insisted on sitting with his back to the wall and acted like she didn’t notice his jittery hands and choice of decaf.

Of course, she also had some inkling (more than just an inkling) that Brian’s life was less than simple in this moment, and certainly understood exactly what _that_ felt like. So they both pretended like everything was normal, and Brian thought that maybe just pretending could actually be the key to success.

“Girl, you’re a riot,” Alaska chuckled. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve put together for that one woman show of yours.”

“Were you planning on coming to that?” Brian furrowed his brow, taken aback.

“Obviously,” Alaska drawled. “You’ve got a show in LA like next month right?”

“Well,” Brian chewed on the inside of his lip, not knowing when the next time he’d be performing at all, let alone in his one woman show, would be. “Maybe?”

Alaska’s face softened in understanding.

“You’re cancelling some shows, huh?” There was no judgment in her tone, and equally no pity, for which Brian was appreciative.

“Just a few,” Brian shrugged, focusing his attention on the long-empty cup of coffee in front of him. “Until… Y’know.”

_Until the bruises are healed, until people stop asking questions, until that video stops circulating, until my brain starts functioning again, until I stop having nightmares during the little sleep I do get._

Alaska nodded quietly in response to that for a moment before leaning forward on her elbows.

“Listen, I feel like you should know I talked to Katya,” Alaska said. Brian’s eyes shot up in surprise. “I wanted to figure out what was going on with you--if I could help at all,” she shrugged.

“Right,” Brian choked out, feeling suddenly trapped in a box where everyone knew more about his situation than he’d ever wanted. It shouldn’t have shocked him how quickly things could stop being normal, that’s how he got into this predicament in the first place, after all.

“She wouldn’t tell me anything though. Something about how if you can keep her skeletons in _your_ closet then… I dunno…”

“Then she can keep mine in hers,” Brian finished with a soft, relieved chuckle.

“I can never tell what’s a sex thing with her if we’re being honest,” Alaska laughed.

“When in doubt, assume anything Katya says is a sex thing,” Brian replied and Alaska snorted out a laugh.

“Look,” Alaska got serious again. “I’m not gonna push you but, if you need to talk about it to someone other than that chain smoking whore, I’m here.”

Brian could see genuine care in Alaska’s eyes, an earnestness that he hadn’t seen before, although maybe he just hadn’t ever been paying this close of attention. He nodded solemnly.

“Thank you," he said, and then a moment later as realization dawned on him: "Are you some kind of a spy? Gonna report back to everyone and tell them what a mess I am?" 

There wasn't any malice in his tone, he understood that he was now an essential part of the gossip train, but that didn't mean he had to like it. 

"I mean, first I'm just going to tell Kim you're  _alive_ ," Alaska raised her eyebrows. "She's not crazy about how you've been dodging her calls."

Brian's heart sank. He knew that he hadn't been handling interaction with his friends all that well, had been ignoring genuine attempts to help him or to at least hear from him at all. Kim was so important to him, and he hated that he didn't know what to say to her about any of this. He just hadn't found the right words yet. 

"I deserve that," Brian said flatly. 

"I get that you need space," Alaska continued, eyes earnest as they tried to maintain contact with Brian's. "You deserve to be allowed to take your time just," she shrugged. "Just come to us once you're ready. As fucking cliche as it is, we're your sisters and we have your back, bitch."

It wasn’t until later that evening that Brian finally got to crack open a beer. It was six o’clock and he figured he didn’t have to work nights anymore so why the fuck not?

His coffee date with Alaska had been far from bad, but it had certainly been exhausting. Interacting with other human beings was becoming more and more difficult for Brian with each passing day, so much so that he hadn’t been on Twitter in over a week. In fact, he had only been responding to what felt like urgent messages and had been ignoring most of his friends since the initial Incident as Alaska had so subtly reprimanded him for. 

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to act or how he was even supposed to feel. All he did know was that the world seemed to be collapsing in on him and that beer helped him breathe just a little bit easier at times. He had to find a way through this, had to intellectualize it or study it or thoroughly investigate how it was affecting him. Sometimes though he just really wanted to put as much distance between himself and _it_ as he possibly could.

So he drank, and he tried not to think, and he only picked up the phone for Katya because he hated to think what kind of ultimate panic his friend would go into if he didn't pick up.

He sat on the couch where he’d recently taken to also claiming as his bed and fingered through a vaguely familiar melody on his autoharp. At this point, even the idea of going out and finding a replacement guitar made his stomach flip uncomfortably so he made do with the smaller instrument for now.

This melody, one that he’d only played once before (and messily at that) rang slowly out through his small apartment, so he began to hum along. He could feel the meaning of the song in his bones but he couldn’t put his finger on it, couldn’t put words to it quite yet.

He felt like he was relearning how to speak, but the way the voice of this melody in particular itched at the back of his skull eventually became too much to handle and he grabbed hold of another beer, taking a few long gulps as he set the autoharp aside on the coffee table.

Everything felt so heavy, but at least by his third (or maybe his fourth or fifth or sixth) beer things started to float around in his head. Memories of fists against his face and knees to his ribs felt lighter and unfortunate flashbacks to freshman year of high school and CPS stopped weighing him down quite so much.

And so he decided that Twitter might not be such a bad idea after all.

It turned out he wasn’t necessarily wrong, but he certainly wasn’t right either.

What he found included not only a mountain of mentions asking where he was and what was going on in that one video (only one video and people were losing their minds), but also a number of less than kind messages about said situation.

 

_@rdrfan230488: @trixiemattel if fans pay to see you live you shouldn’t literally push them away??? wtf_

 

_@katyaaamattellll: i can’t believe @trixiemattel is cancelling shows just bc fans are a little upset???? that’s fucked up bitch_

 

_@markusmattel2345: i guess some people just can’t hold themselves accountable for being shitty to their fans @trixiemattel_

 

Brian’s heart rate sped up, and he could feel the buzz in his head that had once been a pleasant side effect of the beer start to become too loud.

And then he saw it.

 

_@tooburds: @trixiemattel at least owes us an explanation for why she’s acting like a cunt about this. she isn’t even gonna explain why she’s cancelling??? fuck that._

_@katya_zamo: @tooburds fun fact! you’re the cunt if you think anyone owes you anything_

 

It wasn’t the only message like that. The longer he looked the more instances of Katya being downright passive aggressive with fans he saw, telling people that something was _none of their business_ or reminding them that _drag queens are people too_.

It was a lot.

Part of him wanted to cry about the amount of love he had for his best friend and part of him wanted to scream that he didn’t need any help, but most of him just really wanted everyone to stop being so concerned with what decisions he made regarding his own goddamn life.

Brian’s head was buzzing even louder now and the booze in his system was making his thought processes a hell of a lot slower, so he didn’t fully realize what he was doing until he had the phone to his ear and was listening to it ring.

“Hi, hello, Tracy?”

“You gotta stop defending my honor online or people’re gonna talk,” Brian slurred ever so slightly, just tipsy enough that Katya could hear it in his voice.

“Sorry to inform you,” Katya chuckled. “But I think that ship has long sailed.”

Brian hummed in agreement, burying his face in the couch cushions and listening to the commotion going on on Katya’s end of the line. He thought he heard someone say his name and then a faint smack.

“Hold on,” Katya said. “I’m gonna go somewhere a little quieter.”

“Okay,” Brian mumbled, listening to the sounds of people, music, and a door opening and closing with a definite click. “Are you at a show?”

“Just finishing one,” Katya said.

“What time is it?” Brian asked.

“A little after midnight,” Katya said simply.

“Fuck, when did it get so late?” Brian asked, more of himself than of Katya. He wasn’t sure when he’d lost track of time and he was pretty sure he had forgotten about food for the entire day.

“Are you drunk?” Katya questioned, already knowing the answer.

“Only a little bit,” Brian said. “Drunk enough to go on Twitter.”

“Pretty drunk then,” Katya concluded, but there was a faint smile in his voice.

“People on Twitter are the worst,” Brian continued.

“I agree.”

“They’re-- Katya they’re so _mean_ . Like, they don’t fuckin’ know what’s going on but they talk about me like they _do_ but they _don’t_ ,” Brian explained as if this was entirely new information.

“Maybe you should stop looking at Twitter for today,” Katya suggested softly. “Maybe we both should just take a break from Twitter.”

“I wanna say so many things to them,” Brian continued. “Wait, I have my laptop I can talk to you and them at the same time,” he sat up and reached for the laptop that sat on the floor nearby.

“Trixie, I don’t think--”

“I gotta tell ‘em to fuck off. I need them to stop and maybe if I just tell them what cunts they’re being--”

“Okay, no, that’s where we stop,” Katya said definitively. “How about you just tell me all the things you want to tweet and we can decide together whether or not that’s a good idea?”

“I have too many things to say, Kat,” Brian said, not having even opened his laptop. He felt disgusting and heavy and like twenty showers wouldn’t help him scrub the grime off his psyche.

“And I’ll gladly listen to all of them,” Katya assured him. “I just don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret once you sober up.”

“You’re so smart,” Brian said, flopping onto his side and grabbing hold of a pillow. He could feel tears inexplicably pricking at the back of his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone I said this but I’d fuck up so bad without you.”

“Baby, you have always been the smart one,” Katya chuckled for a moment but his face fell when he heard the smallest sob leave Brian’s lungs.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Hey, shhh,” Katya hushed hurriedly. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m right here, I’ll always be right here.”

“I’m sorry,” Brian said tearfully. “I’m sorry I’m a fucking drunk mess.”

“Don’t apologize, don’t be sorry,” Katya said. “Can I come over? I feel like I should come over. I want to come over.”

“You’re at a show,” Brian protested. “You don’t gotta do that.”

“The show is over,” Katya said. “I can be out of drag and on my way in fifteen minutes.”

Brian was hesitant, knowing that he was once again disrupting Katya’s life for the sake of his personal bullshit, but drunk enough that all he wanted was to feel Katya’s arms around him, to hear his voice and feel his fingers on his skin.

“Okay,” he breathed.

Brian was still curled up awkwardly on the couch when Katya arrived, knocking and then using his spare key to let himself in.

He closed and locked the door behind him, slipping off his shoes as he took in the sight before him.

It had been a few days since Katya had been to Brian's apartment, and it had gotten exponentially messier in that short time. There were empty beer bottles strewn all over the floor and piles of mail, bills, and magazines cluttering every surface available.

Brian was clutching onto a pink pillow, laying on his side with his eyes squeezed shut and clearly working very hard to keep his breathing steady.

Katya's heart broke, but he picked it up, taped it together, and walked over to the couch.

“Hey, mama,” he said softly, crouching down so he could be at eye level with Brian.

Brian cracked open his red and swollen eyes, more tears falling just at the sight of Katya before him.

He reached out a hand and gently placed it on Katya's cheek as though he was checking to make sure he was real. Katya leaned into his touch softly, turning his face ever so slightly to press a small, almost imperceptible kiss into Brian's palm.

“You wanna go to bed?” Katya asked. “Maybe try to get some sleep?”

Brian just nodded in response, and Katya knew he'd transitioned into the nonverbal part of this particular rough patch.

“Okay,” Katya said. “Let's get you to bed.”

Katya offered a hand to Brian as he stood, not wanting to touch him without permission, knowing that that was the biggest trigger for all of this.

But Brian took his hand and let him lead him to his own bedroom. Katya only let go to start clearing things off of the bed, which seemed to have become more of a place to store dirty laundry than to actually sleep.

Brian stood and watched from the doorway as Katya moved comfortably around his bedroom, putting laundry in the proper basket and pulling extra blankets from the closet. Despite how cluttered his brain felt, watching Katya carry out these simple tasks made him feel oddly grounded.

Then again, maybe it was just Katya who made him feel grounded.

“Okay, here you go,” Katya said as he pulled the covers on the bed back. “Do you want to change first?”

Brian just shook his head, not having the energy to go through all of that. Instead, he just unbuckled his belt and dropped his jeans, leaving him in boxers and a t-shirt as he climbed under the covers.

Katya joined him amongst the many blankets, propping himself up a little higher on the pillows as Brian curled into his side and rested his head on his chest. It should have been an awkward position for the both of them, Brian being pretty significantly taller than Katya, but it was the most comfortable either had been in a long time.

Brian rested his hand on Katya’s stomach, idly playing with the fabric of his t-shirt, and Katya had an arm wrapped around Brian’s shoulders, holding the younger man close to him as they both settled in with deep breaths.

Soft tears fell silently from Brian’s eyes and Katya ran his fingers gently back and forth across his shoulder blades. Katya didn’t know what to do, felt like he had tried everything and none of it was making any of this easier for either one of them. He wished there was a manual, some sort of black and white instructional to tell him step by step how to fix all of Brian’s broken parts.

But there wasn’t, so he stayed, and he comforted, and he pulled the covers up tighter around Brian, leaving his free hand resting on Brian’s hip and running his thumb back and forth in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

“What can I do?” Katya eventually asked, when the tears hadn’t stopped but Brian’s grip on his shirt had gotten tighter. “Please tell me what I can do. I hate that I can’t help you.”

Brian was quiet for a moment, nuzzling closer to Katya before he spoke.

“You’re helping,” he insisted softly. “You’re always helping.”

Katya didn’t have the words to respond to that, so instead he bent his head down slightly and pressed a small kiss into Brian’s temple, took a deep breath, and squeezed him just a little bit tighter.

They continued to lie there mutely for a few more minutes, just holding onto each other as if they were the only two people left on earth, until Brian finally spoke up. It was the quiet that was driving him crazy more than anything, because the quiet made his brain seem just all that much louder.

“Katya?” he began hesitantly.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Could you talk to me?” Brian felt stupid the moment he asked, almost wanting to take it back but wanting to hear Katya’s voice resonating through his skull more.

“What do you wanna talk about?” Katya asked without hesitation, ready to track down a copy of the Communist Manifesto and read it if that was what Brian wanted.

“Anything,” Brian mumbled. “I just wanna listen to something other than… me.”

“Well, I’m very good at being distracting,” Katya said, trying to think of something worth saying.

“I always find you very distracting,” Brian said. It was almost an afterthought, colored by fondness that made Katya’s cheeks warm.

“Okay, let’s see,” Katya hummed in thought and Brian could feel it in his bones. “How about… Oh! Do you remember the first time we hung out just as friends outside of any drag stuff?”

“Of course,” Brian smiled against Katya’s chest.

“We both had a day off in LA at the same time somehow,” Katya continued, a joy in his voice that hadn’t been there just minutes earlier. “And we spent the entire day together even though it was stupid fucking hot outside.”

“It was supposed to just be coffee,” Brian chimed in and Katya laughed.

“It _was_ ,” he couldn’t keep the grin off his face and could feel some of the tension leaving Brian so he kept going. “But after we’d spent a few hours at Starbucks you insisted on showing me that horrible vintage shop--”

“It’s not horrible, you fucking loved it,” Brian insisted, lifting his head just enough to look at Katya. His eyes were still rimmed with red and cloudy with tears but there was a shine there that hadn’t been present for weeks.

“God, we spent hours trying on the most ridiculous shit we could find,” Katya shook his head fondly at the memory. “And the owners kept getting mad because we were scaring off actual customers.”

“ _You_ were scaring off actual customers,” Brian corrected. “I wasn’t the one doing gymnastics in between the racks.”

“As if your obnoxious scream laugh didn’t have something to do with people leaving,” Katya teased. “Every time you found something funny it was like the fire alarm was going off.”

“Shut up, you love my laugh, bitch,” Brian shoved at Katya playfully. Katya smiled softly down at him, heart soaring at how Brian looked the closest to human he had in weeks.

“Yeah,” Katya said, and before he could stop himself: “I miss it.”

The tone in the room noticeably shifted and Katya immediately regretted speaking up at all, but Brian just scooted closer and draped one of his legs over Katya’s in some attempt to be impossibly close to the other man.

“I’m trying,” he said quietly, the warm yellow light of the bedside lamp bouncing off his skin and glowing in the late hours of the night.

“I know,” Katya replied genuinely. “It’s gonna get better.”

“How can you know?”

“Because,” Katya paused for a beat, thinking about how much he admired Brian’s strength, how he saw everything in Brian, how Brian _was_ everything to him. He thought about the way Brian had changed his life and supported him and cared for him through everything and he thought about how Brian was the most important person to him in the world. But he didn’t say that. “Because, if anyone can figure out how to find the humor in something so fucking painful, it’s you.”

“You're one to talk,” Brian responded as he ran his hand across Katya's chest, slowly as if he was smoothing down all the hardship Katya had been through, trying to erase it with the care radiating off his fingertips. Katya felt like he might actually be succeeding.

Katya shifted his position in bed, scooting farther down on the pillow so that his face was just inches from Brian's.

They were sharing breath as Katya rested his forehead against Brian's and ghosted a hand over the shape of his bruises.

“Katya,” Brian whispered and Katya hummed in acknowledgment. “Sometimes I feel like it'll never get better. Like it’ll always be this hard and there's nothing I can do about it.”

“You're going to get past this,” Katya insisted in an equally low whisper, eyes closed as he tucked Brian's head under his chin. “I'm gonna be here every step of the way and you're gonna keep moving forward and get past all of it. I promise.”

Brian just wrapped an arm across Katya's waist and took a deep breath, trying to believe him with all his heart.

“Thank you,” Brian started up again. “I really can't thank you--”

“Trix,” Katya cut him off by speaking into his short hair. “Just go to sleep. I'll still be here in the morning.”

Katya switched off the lamp next to the bed and let his muscles relax into Brian, subtly urging him to do the same.

In time, Brian melted against Katya’s side.

In time, Brian’s breathing evened out.

In time, everything went quiet.

Even if only for a little while.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think and come say hi on tumblr @ourforgottenboleros!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Katya?” Ginger asked. 
> 
> “Mmhmm?”
> 
> “You at Trixie’s place?”
> 
> “Mmhmm,” Katya hummed in acknowledgement. 
> 
> “You're a slut.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! hello! thank you so much for continuing to stick with me and thank you for all of your amazing comments! 
> 
> there's a minor reprieve from the pain in this chapter and it was very fun to write so i hope you like it <3

Katya was startled awake on that Sunday morning in a familiar bed that didn’t belong to him by a ringtone that most certainly did. 

It took him a moment to gather himself, tangled in a pile of sheets and blankets, alone in the middle of Trixie Mattel’s mattress.

“Fucking--bullshit--goddammit,” he mumbled as he stumbled out of the bed and to where his phone was resting on a nearby chair. “Hello?” he questioned, clearing the sleep out of his throat less than successfully.

“You just wake up, bitch?”

“Ginger?” Katya collapsed on the floor, leaning his elbow on the chair next to him and running a hand over his face. “What’s it to you if I just woke up?”

“A nuisance mostly,” Ginger teased in that gravelly voice of hers. “You’re a crazy heavy sleeper, girl.”

“I woke up when you called me, didn’t I?” Katya defended. 

“Yeah, but I’ve been pounding on your front door for five minutes and you haven’t heard that, apparently.”

Katya’s eyes shot open at that. Of course he couldn’t hear Ginger at his front door, he was halfway across town in someone else’s bed. 

“Ah,” he said in realization. 

“Are you coming to let me in or what? I don’t hear any movement, you lazy whore,” Ginger continued, oblivious. “I brought you coffee and everything because last night you rushed off so fast and I wanted to check in. Whatever this shit that Trixie’s dealing with sounds like hell and I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”

“Um,” Katya squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find the words to properly express this particular situation. 

“You’re real slow this morning, aren’t you?” Ginger laughed. “Open the door already!”

“Can’t… Can’t do that,” Katya said.

“And why is that?”

“I’m not home?” he mumbled, just loud enough for Ginger to hear but hopefully quiet enough that wherever Brian was in this apartment couldn’t. Ginger was quiet for a moment before speaking up. 

“Katya?”

“Mmhmm?”

“You at Trixie’s place?”

“Mmhmm,” Katya hummed in acknowledgement.

“You're a slut.”

“Ginger!” Katya hissed in defense. “You know that's not what this is.”

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Ginger brushed him off and Katya could hear the ding of an elevator on the other end of the line. “But a girl can hope.”

“A girl could also shut the fuck up about it already but I don't see you doing any of that, you godforsaken whore.”

Katya was blushing behind his exasperation, having had this conversation with Ginger too many times but never getting used to the way his heart jumped at the mere suggestion that he and Trixie were a  _ he and Trixie _ . 

“If God’s forsaken me then I can only imagine what she's done to your sorry ass,” Ginger joked, and then a moment later, serious again: “Is she okay?”

Katya sighed, getting tired of being the messenger between Trixie and the rest of the world but knowing it was necessary to a certain extent. If people were bothering Katya about the situation then they weren't bothering Trixie, and their hearts were in the right place after all.

“She will be,” Katya decided to say. 

“And you'll tell us if there's anything the rest of us can do?” It was more of an order than a question.

“Yeah, Ginge. Right now though, I don't know, she just needs…”

“You?”

“I was gonna say  _ peace and quiet _ , which none of you idiots can provide,” Katya deflected. 

“Okay,” Ginger conceded. “Just don't wear yourself down trying to build her back up.”

“Bye, Ginger,” Katya didn't even acknowledge what she'd said before he hung up. 

Ginger and Katya, hell, the  _ whole world _ knew that Katya would dig his own grave and lay down in it if that was what it took to get Trixie Mattel back on her feet. That was just the way of things. 

Katya tossed his phone onto the mattress with an exasperated sigh, still sitting on the floor of Brian's bedroom and letting himself finish waking up all the way. The room was warm in both temperature and color, golden morning light filtering in from behind the curtains to illuminate the joyous colors of Brian’s home decor. 

As he started to get his wits about him, Katya could hear a faint strumming coming from the other side of the door in the living room.

It was repetitive, the same few notes being played again and again, with a brief pause in between the end and beginning of the phrase. When he strained his ears just a bit more, he thought he might even be able to hear the soft sounds of singing, but that couldn't be, could it?

Katya hadn't heard Brian sing in far too long, assumed that when the light was taken from his sparkling eyes that the song had been taken from his lungs as well. 

He almost didn't want to leave this room, instead try and listen to the music filtering in from under the door for as long as he could get away with, but knew he had to check in on Brian eventually. 

Brian had woken up hours earlier, with his arms still wrapped around Katya and his legs tangled in the other man’s. It was early, sure, but it was also the most sleep he had gotten in a while (in other words, the most sleep he had gotten since the last time Katya had spent the night). Not only that, but it was the least restless he had felt upon waking up, knowing he had to face another day with uncertainty of where he was going in his life and career, whether or not he even had it in him to take a fucking shower. 

But on this morning, with Katya snoring in bed next to him and the sun rising slowly outside his window, he felt more capable and strong and put together than he could remember feeling in recent history.

So, with a steadiness he'd forgotten he could ever maintain, he had quietly gotten out of bed and left Katya to curl up around one of his baby pink pillows instead. He paused for a moment, taking in the contentedness of Katya's face, brow smooth without worry and limbs tangled haphazardly amongst wrinkled sheets. The sight of it made his heart settle and flutter and fly all at the same time. 

It took far too much effort to look away and walk into his living room.

His first accomplishment of the morning after that was making coffee. With a steaming mug and cold water splashed on his face, he found his way back to the couch where his laptop and autoharp still remained from the night before. He figured his phone was somewhere nearby too, but had no interest in checking it, figured it was probably dead at this point anyway. 

Brian tucked a leg under him as he sat on the couch and sipped his coffee, but couldn't get the itch of that same melody out of his hands. 

The first time he tried to strum through it was slow, rough, but after a few tries the cords and notes began to really shape into something that sounded a little bit more like a song. 

Around the fourth time he played through relatively smoothly, his hands fumbled as words began to tumble from his heart straight up into the front of his brain. 

He stopped playing suddenly and grabbed the nearest pen and scratch paper he could find-- a takeout menu for the restaurant that had given him food poisoning one month prior. 

 

_ Living’s supposed to kill you, _

_ But it shouldn’t feel like dying. _

 

He mumbled along the words to the basic tune a few times, finding the phrasing that felt right in his mouth. 

 

_ Loving’s supposed to spill you, _

_ But it fills you like your wine. _

 

He went on like that for a while as the sun climbed higher in the sky, finding a handful of words and then placing them on top of strings and sound to give them life. His fingers were learning how to walk across strings again, his lungs rediscovering how to make the air inside them dance as it passed through his lips.

Brian lost track of time until he heard Katya's phone ringing in the other room. He stifled a snort at the fumbling sounds of Katya nearly falling out of bed to answer, but he kept playing quietly with the hopes that he could just get to the end of this verse. 

He was back in his world of lyrics and notes by the time Katya stepped out of his bedroom, looking moderately bleary eyed in his zipped up sweat jacket and socks. 

“Morning, you sleepy bitch,” Brian said, setting the menu that had become his notebook aside and letting the harp lay in his lap.

“You shoulda woken me up,” Katya protested, leaning against the doorframe with a yawn.

“Looked like you needed the sleep,” Brian shrugged, breaking eye contact and hoping his cheeks didn't look as warm as they felt at the thought of how adorable Brian had found Katya even amongst the snoring. 

“Is that coffee?” Katya motioned to the mug that Brian had abandoned next to him nearly an hour ago. 

“Uh, yeah,” he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Think I let the pot go cold though.”

“I'll make some fresh,” Katya said, taking Brian's mug from him on his way to the kitchen. 

Brian put his harp away while Katya was in the kitchen, even going so far as to start picking up some of the trash (beer bottles) and clutter (dirty laundry and drag) that was scattered around his living room.

He had a good collection started up in the trash can when Katya returned with two cups of coffee, never even needing to ask how Brian wanted his because he knew. He always just managed to know. 

Katya sat down on the couch and sipped at his coffee with a hum of contentment. 

Brian joined him, curled up in the corner of the couch and facing Katya. The domesticity of it all wasn't lost on either of them, but it also wasn't particularly new. 

“How long have you been up?” Katya asked, partially out of guilt for oversleeping and partially to find out how much sleep Brian had gotten. 

“A little while,” Brian shrugged. “Do you have a show tonight?”

“No,” Katya shook his head. “I have some things to do today though because tomorrow I’m… working.”

“You don’t have to not talk about drag just because I’m actively throwing my career away with every show I cancel,” Brian said. 

“You’re not throwing your career away,” Katya sighed, just a hint of exasperation mixed into his tone. Brian just took a sip of his coffee with raised eyebrows. 

“You should get going if you have stuff to get done,” Brian fiddled with his fingers as they wrapped and unwrapped from his mug repeatedly. “I don’t wanna keep you.”

“I have time, it’s just some sewing,” Katya assured him. 

“Making new outfits?” Brian’s interest was piqued, and he raised his head to look at Katya again. 

“I bought a couple of things the other day that don’t quite fit right with my pads,” Katya shrugged. “Just need to find the best way to alter them.”

“Do you need some help?” Brian asked hopefully.

Here’s the thing, Katya  _ didn’t _ need any help. He was fully capable of doing basic alterations on cheap vintage dresses. Really, if there was anything he knew how to do it was  _ this _ . But that moment, with raised eyebrows and straight shoulders, was the first time he had seen Brian show any interest in getting his hands back in the game, and he was suddenly overcome with hope. 

“If you’re willing to give it?” Katya treaded lightly. “Definitely.”

A few hours and a forced meal courtesy of Katya later ( _ I don’t wanna eat-- If you don’t eat this sandwich you have to eat my pussy) _ , Brian was running his fingers along the textured fabrics of Katya’s newest wardrobe items. Dresses and skirts hung from a free-standing clothing rack in Katya’s living room, all in need of some level of repair or alteration.

Katya watched as Brian studied each piece intently, examining hemlines and stitching with methodical care. 

“Is this supposed to be a dress or a shirt?” Brian pulled an intricately embroidered garment with a high neckline and long sleeves off the rack. 

“A beautiful, gorgeous, womanly dress,” Katya groaned. “It’s so short but I just couldn’t resist buying it. I probably can’t make anything out of it to be honest.”

It was a tragedy really, such a perfect thing going to waste like that.

Brian pulled it off the hanger and held it up with both hands, furrowing his brow as he looked at the embroidery detail near the hem. 

“How do you feel about bodysuits?” he asked, not looking up as he turned the whole thing inside out to study the stitching. 

“Bitch, you  _ know _ how I feel about a good bodysuit,” Katya scoffed. Brian lifted his gaze and stifled a small laugh at Katya’s comically exasperated expression. 

“There’s probably enough fabric here to recut the hem and turn it into a leotard instead of a dress,” Brian shrugged, demonstrating what he meant to Katya by folding the corners of the fabric down. 

“Wait, really?” Katya’s eyes lit up at the thought of it. “You can do that?”

“I mean, it’ll take some finessing because of all this fucking old lady embroidery--”

“The embroidery is what makes it  _ special _ , thank you very much--”

“But, with a little bit of time I think I can pull it off,” Brian ignored Katya’s interruption. “Only if that’s what you want, though,” he hurried to add. 

“You stupid whore, of  _ course _ that’s what I want!” Katya exclaimed. 

Katya caught a glance at the brief and fleeting smile that passed across Brian’s face at that moment. His heart fluttered at the sight of it and his stomach dipped unexpectedly.

“Well then, give me your scrawny crackhead measurements so I can get started.”

The best part of how normal everything started to feel after that was that neither one of them was  _ thinking _ about just how goddamn normal it all felt. No one was walking on eggshells and no one was pretending to ignore the umbrella of overlying tension that had existed in any room Brian entered for the past few weeks. 

Brian basked in the moment, breathing easily with the familiar sensation of threading a needle. In the back of his mind, he knew this wasn’t all of his problems being suddenly solved, but he was grateful for the respite. 

They just  _ were _ , and that was enough. 

A televised marathon featuring old episodes of  _ Chopped _ played on Katya’s TV in the background. The sound of the sewing machine drowned out most of the audio, but neither of them were paying that much attention to the frantic chefs anyway. 

“What about this as an outfit?” Katya adjusted a loose wig on his head and Brian stopped sewing, turning around from where he sat on the floor in front of Katya’s coffee table to look at what new ensemble his friend had come up with this time. 

“Oh my god,” Brian snorted, pulling a pin out from where he’d been keeping it in between his teeth. 

Katya was posing in a long dress, rustic brown and covered with an interesting (see: crazy, awful, clashing) array of fringes and lace. The wig was a sleek (but still unstyled) blonde bob that Brian felt matched more of a businesswoman realness than whatever the hell Katya was trying to pull off with that dress. 

“What?” Katya asked innocently with a shrug, trying to hold back a grin as she twirled and let her skirt billow out around the boy pants she was still wearing underneath. 

“What kind of  _ witch-about-to-be-burned-at-the-stake _ featuring  _ season-four-of-Arrested Development-Portia de Rossi-hair  _ realness is that?” Brian laughed with an aghast expression. Katya screamed at the description and flailed her arms, a perfectly post-verbal response that left Brian cackling on the floor. 

“You rotted cunt!” Katya exclaimed when she had caught her breath. “This is  _ clearly _ more like  _ woman-accused-of-witchcraft-that-they-figured-out-is-innocent-but-has-already-been-drowned _ !”

Brian threw his head back in a squealing peal of laughter that only made Katya laugh harder at her own joke. 

“You’re impossible,” Brian said in between catching his breath. “Fucking ridiculous whore-- and that  _ wig _ .”

“This wig is the cherry on top of a glorious, stupendous, feminine  _ look _ , Trixie Mattel,” Katya defended, still unable to stop smiling. 

“That wig is a crime against humanity!” Brian fought back. “Even  _ I _ couldn’t pull that wig off and I’m the most beautiful woman to ever  _ live! _ ”

“Bitch!” Katya cackled, plopping down on the floor next to Brian. 

“What are you doing?” Brian asked, humor still radiating off of every inch of him. 

“Proving you  _ wrong _ ,” Katya pulled off the wig and placed it on Brian’s head instead, tugging on the lace front and straightening it out the best he could. “There!” 

“This goes against my aesthetic,” Brian said in a classic white girl voice. Katya screamed, grinning with all his teeth. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my  _ god _ ,” he said as he pulled out his phone and started snapping photos. Brian posed as though he was trying to coyly avoid the camera.

“No! My brand will be ruined if people see me like this!” he said in the haughty voice of a woman who actually had some sort of reputation to uphold. 

“But, darling, you’re fabulous!” Katya joined in on the rich, white woman fantasy of a bit. “Just look,” he handed his phone over to show Brian the photos, to which Brian immediately dropped the act and cackled with amusement. 

“I look like a fucking Cabbage Patch doll!” he exclaimed, scrolling through the photos. 

“Barbie’s MidWestern cousin!” Katya added jovially. 

“You stupid  _ bitch _ !” Brian smacked Katya’s arm, but was clearly not even the slightest bit offended, fully living for the comparison that was all too spot on. “That’s it, I’m keeping this wig. You don’t deserve it.”

“Keep it,” Katya mimed flinging non-existent hair over his shoulder. “This look is better bald anyway.”

“Look, I know you’re upset that Sasha Velour is stealing the Russian thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to steal her alien head realness aesthetic,” Brian deadpanned. Katya’s mouth dropped open and he was speechless for all of a moment before the wordless laughter was back and he was grabbing onto Brian’s knee for support. 

“Go-- go straight-- go straight to  _ hell _ , Trixie Mattel,” Katya choked out between peals of laughter. 

Brian’s cheeks hurt from smiling and his heart felt so light that he thought it might just fly away entirely of its own accord as he watched Katya, dawned in the worst dress he’d ever seen, laughing as if it was his last chance. It felt good to laugh, but Brian couldn’t help but think that it felt even better to make Katya laugh again. 

For weeks, Katya had graced him with nothing but worried glances and protective words, but getting to see him scream and flail and wheeze like a maniac was better than any heartfelt speech he could have given. Not that Brian wasn’t also supremely grateful for all the heartfelt speeches. 

As the laughter died down and both regained their ability to breathe normally, Brian leaned over just enough to rest his head on Katya’s shoulder, blonde wig tickling at the older man’s neck. 

Katya felt his heart stutter with warmth in his ribs, but he lifted his arm and wrapped it around Brian, letting his head rest gently on top of his friend’s. 

Without really thinking it through, Katya took his phone back and lifted it up in front of the two of them, snapping a photo in which a messy wig covered half of Brian’s face and Katya’s cheek was squashed against the top of Brian’s head. Katya thought Brian might protest, but he just chuckled and smiled softly. 

All was calm. 

A week later, Katya left LA to go on a three week tour with a number of other Ru girls. It was a tour that Brian should have been on, had been advertised as going on, but had bowed out of in favor of staying behind. Katya tried to stay with him, to call up Michelle and and tell her to find a replacement for him in the show, but Brian wasn’t having any of it.

He was  _ better _ , he insisted, he was  _ going to survive three weeks without your smoker’s breath _ . Of course, Brian  _ was _ better, he still had a long way to go, but  _ better _ was something. There were still moments of panic and nightmares that popped up even at the end of what he considered to be good days. 

So yeah, he was better, just not necessarily ready to be back in an environment that was quite as emotionally taxing as a tour like this one.

And so Katya left, under the condition that Brian would check in daily ( _ What, you really think I’m gonna off myself?-- Please don’t joke about that, girl _ ).

Tour should have been distracting enough of an experience for Katya, should have kept his mind off of the queen on hiatus that he’d left behind in the sunshine state. No one was all that surprised that he was moderately preoccupied though. 

No one wanted to bring up the elephant in the room around Katya, but he could always tell that they had been talking about Trixie when he walked into a room post smoke break and everyone suddenly went eerily quiet for a room full of drag queens. He shrugged it off and pushed through and never stopped being his energetic, a little bit off, self. 

He was stuck in a cycle of building tension that always reset when he got a text or phone call from Brian. Some days it was an hour long phone conversation filled with laughter and jokes that almost sent Katya tumbling out of his bunk on the tour bus and made Sharon Needles yell at him to  _ shut the fuck up _ . Some days it was good, but other days all Katya received was a single text reading  _ not dead yet _ . Those were the days that he had to hold himself back from getting a cab to the airport and getting on the next flight to LA. 

There had even been more than a couple of nights that Katya had sat on the floor of a venue’s bathroom and whispered soothing words into the phone as Brian cried on the other end of the line, a vast time difference and far too much space separating the two of them. 

“Just breathe,” Katya would say, trying not to choke on his own words. “You’ve gotten through this before and it’ll end, just remember that it always ends.”

Katya would always leave the bathroom at the end of the call to prying eyes and curious glances, but she would just pick up doing her makeup wherever she had left off. 

Meet and greets were a nightmare, getting rid of the wall between Katya and her fans and giving them an open opportunity to pry into her life, into Trixie’s life. Fans would ask her how All Stars 3 was going for Trixie or say how disappointed they were that she hadn’t come on tour. Katya became beyond talented at deftly changing the subject over the course of those three weeks. 

Of all people, Alaska became weirdly in tune with Katya’s ever shifting mood. The two had never been on bad terms per se, but over the course of the tour they grew close and Katya began to consider Alaska something of a real life friend instead of just a work one. Alaska’s methodical, calm demeanor balanced out Katya’s frantic, energetic one in ways that just seemed to work for them. 

“Can’t sleep?” Alaska droned one night, sitting down next to Katya in the kitchenette of the small bus. It was late and the rest of the girls were asleep in their bunks, leaving only Katya, Alaska, and the bus driver awake as the bus travelled through desert landscapes and back towards California and the end of the tour. 

“Y’know,” Katya shrugged, not answering but giving Alaska all the answer she needed. 

“Haven’t heard from her today?”

“No, she texted me earlier,” Katya shook his head. “She sounds good.”

“Then why’re you sitting by yourself at four in the morning?” Alaska raised an eyebrow. 

“It’s quiet?” Katya answered, voice ticking up at the end like he was uncertain. 

“You’ve got your thinking face on.”

“I know it’s surprising but I  _ do _ think every once in awhile, Lasky.”

Alaska chuckled at that, mouth curving up in a small smile. 

“Who would’ve thought you could still do that at your age,” she shot right back. 

“I was starting to change my mind about you, but turns out you’re still a bitch,” Katya laughed. 

There was a beat of silence between the two of them, the only sound the circulating air conditioning of the bus. 

“Do you think she’ll ever come back?” Alaska asked, watching Katya’s expression carefully. She wanted to push him, but she wanted to stop before she completely crossed the line. 

“I hope… I know…” Katya searched for his words. “I have to believe she will.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“I can’t think about that,” Katya shook his head definitively. “I can’t think about… about losing… I can’t lose her.”

“What the fuck makes you think you’ll lose her if she quits drag?” Alaska asked. Katya crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back into the bench. 

“Alaska,” he sighed and ran a hand over his face tiredly. 

“Girl,” Alaska chuckled humorlessly. “You’re fucking done for.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Katya asked, knowing full well exactly what it meant. 

“You’re in too deep to go back,” Alaska said, sounding far more intelligent than anyone ever gave her credit for. “So why not just push on forward?”

“You know why,” Katya looked at her seriously. “Of all people, you fucking know.”

Alaska shrugged and bit her lip in contemplation. 

“You know what I know?” she stood up and looked down at Katya with arms pulling her sweatshirt farther around her. “You and her are different.”

“Different?” Katya felt small sitting down next to Alaska’s mile-high stance. 

“Better,” Alaska shrugged, and with that she was down the pseudo hallway and climbing back into her bunk, leaving Katya alone in the faint glow of artificial light that glared on the windows and blocked out the world outside of the bus, outside of that moment. 

Katya took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and went to bed. 

It was a few pit stops and almost a full day later when they arrived back in LA, the tour finally coming to an end. The queens all parted ways with tired goodbyes as they got ubers and taxis back to their respective homes, or hotels for those who had to catch flights elsewhere the next morning. 

Katya was dragging his feet as he climbed the steps to his apartment, lugging one suitcase up the steps and then going back down to retrieve his second. 

He fumbled with the lock of his door, the key scratching against the doorknob for a moment before he finally slotted it in and opened the door. 

The lights were on as he dragged his suitcases into the entryway, and he suddenly dreaded seeing his electric bill for the month if he left them on for three weeks straight. He shut the door behind him and was about to go fall straight into bed when he heard something clattering in his kitchen.

His eyes grew wide and his heart sped up because  _ someone is in his apartment and this is how he dies _ . Katya grabbed an empty ceramic vase off a table by the entryway as if it would protect him from what he was becoming increasingly certain was a serial killer making dinner in his kitchen and moved towards the noise against his better judgment. 

The moment he peeked around the corner, he dropped the vase from where he was wielding it to let it hang down by his side. 

“You fucking cunt, I thought I was being robbed,” Katya sighed and ran a hand through his short hair. 

“Katya!” Brian chirped in response. “Katya Zamo-lamo-ding-dong! You’re home!”

Katya took in the scene around him, and if he hadn’t been able to tell that Brian was drunk from his chipper slurring, he’d be able to tell from his positioning on the floor of the kitchen and what seemed to be a shattered glass on the tile. 

“Yeah,” Katya cocked his head to one side. “And you’re drunk. On the floor. In my kitchen?”

“Wanted to surprise you when you got back,” Brian explained, a bottle of tequila dangling dangerously in his grip. 

“I’m surprised all right,” Katya chuckled, thinking about how this certainly wasn’t the homecoming he had expected. “You have a bit of an accident?” he motioned to the broken glass on the floor next to Brian. 

“Fuck,” Brian frowned down at it. “I was gonna clean that up--I’mma clean it up--m’sorry Kat,” he slurred as he began to reach out and pick up pieces of glass with his bare hands.

“Wait, no no no,” Katya rushed over and grabbed Brian’s wrist to pull him back from the sharp edges, feeling more like a mother than he ever had before. “Drunk people don’t get to touch broken glass. Come on,” he held onto Brian’s forearm and eased him into a standing position, leading him out of the kitchen and onto the couch. 

“Only a little drunk,” Brian insisted as he slumped into the couch cushions, not even noticing when Katya took the bottle of tequila away from him. Brian grabbed a pillow and held it to his chest, letting his head fall onto the back of the couch. 

“You’re fucking  _ smashed _ ,” Katya raised his eyebrows as he left to clean up the glass. Brian stayed on the couch, mumbling something to himself as Katya brushed the broken shards into a dustpan and dumped it out in the garbage. 

By the time he got back, Brian was shoeless, but otherwise in pretty much the same position he’d been left in. Katya sat down next to him. 

“You doing okay?” Katya asked softly, placing a hand on Brian’s knee and running his thumb across the fabric of his jeans rhythmically. 

“Great,” Brian muttered into the upholstery of the couch, and then moments later: “Missed you.”

“Missed you too, Tracy,” Katya said genuinely, heart breaking just a little bit as he internally reprimanded himself for leaving at all. 

Brian scooted closer to Katya, practically sitting in his lap with his legs across him and his arms around Katya’s shoulders in a tight hug. Katya was stunned at first at how forward the contact was, but ultimately conceded to the embrace and wrapped his arms around Brian too. 

Something felt different about the way Brian was holding him on this night, but Katya pushed the thought back with the assumption that it had just been a few weeks and he’d gotten used to being without his best friend. He should have maybe trusted his gut more. 

Brian untucked his head from Katya’s neck to look at Katya straight in the eye. Brian’s face was flushed with alcohol and his eyes were bleary and emotional, but it was Brian and Katya would never not be flustered with Brian was this close to him. 

Katya felt his gaze involuntarily glance down at Brian’s lips and noticed the other man do the same. His mouth went dry as Brian lifted a hand to rest against his cheek. 

Katya knew it was a bad idea the moment Brian leaned in, the moment his nose brushed against Katya’s, the moment his lips pressed against the corner of Katya’s mouth. All the while he  _ knew _ it was a bad idea, but his mind went blank the moment Brian Firkus kissed him. 

Brian Firkus  _ kissed him _ .

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel like yelling at me? that's valid. both the comments and my tumblr are acceptable places to reprimand me for whatever this bullshit was ( @ourforgottenboleros )
> 
> okay love you sorry bye!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I drink that I’m gonna puke,” Brian mumbled. 
> 
> “I think maybe puking might not be the worst thing for you right now,” Alaska responded, still holding the glass of water out insistently. “After everything you’ve done so far tonight, it might be good to get that out of your system.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter five! only one more after this!
> 
> to everyone that has left kudos and comments-- i appreciate you and love you with my entire heart and soul so thank you for reading this and sticking with it <3 <3

Brian learned the benefits of isolation at a young age. 

He knew how to make himself small, to be quiet and invisible out of a pure necessity of survival. When he became Trixie Mattel, he had to learn how to be unapologetic, how to be loud and bold and maybe even a little bit sloppy at times. 

But it had been awhile since he had been Trixie Mattel.

He hadn’t thought that he would ever turn into who he used to be, never imagined that just one night would send his psyche tumbling back in time to before he learned how to speak without crippling fear in his heart or lungs he had to actively work to inflate with each breath he took. It was far too easy to slip back into that headspace, to remember how to become invisible.

Except he wasn’t invisible, was he? Brian wasn’t sure if he could ever be invisible again because he had placed his own life out on a stage and presented his heart in song and he couldn’t take any of that back. Not now, maybe not ever. 

When Katya left on tour, he really did think that he would be okay. He was Brian Firkus and if Brian Firkus was good at anything it was being alone.

Of course, he didn’t  _ have  _ to be alone, there were plenty of people waiting in the wings for him to come back from wherever his head had drifted off to, waiting to help him find his footing again the moment he would let them. He just wasn’t ready to let them. Not only that, but he was taking his time, figuring out who he was  _ now _ , or at least trying to.

So he hid and he pretended he was invisible and on the nights when even the silence of his empty apartment got too loud he pulled out his phone despite his better judgment and called the one person whose voice never failed to make his heartbeat steady out. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-- I said I would be fine and I  _ am _ , I promise I’m fine,” he would gasp through tears with his hands gripping onto the arm of the couch as he tried to remind himself that this was his own house, that he owned this house and he was an adult and no one was going to try and kick him out. 

Daily check ins with Katya helped keep him grounded in the passing days, helped him remember time was passing and that the world was turning outside of his apartment. Of course, some days were better than others. 

Some days he left the house and ran errands like a functioning adult, some days he wrote lyrics to the song that was becoming so much a part of this broken but mending era of his life, and some days he even laughed or texted a photo of the cyclist wearing the brightest neon he’d ever seen to Kim (who was thrilled even just to hear from him at all, even if it was so sporadically). 

Brian was finding his footing again, taking the moments of solitude to let his head and heart debate and discuss, to determine who it was he’d been and who it was he had yet to become. 

By the end of three weeks, Brian thought that maybe he was finally finding his way back on track again. He thought maybe he had needed all of this space to force him back to the start and figure out where he was going so that he could keep moving forward. Just maybe, the sudden halt he had come to hadn’t been a waste after all. 

It was the day Katya was meant to return home that Brian had stood in front of his closet, Trixie’s closet, and began looking through the rack of pinks and more pinks with hope rather than anxiety.

Three and a half hours later, after half a dozen breaks and three instances of second guessing, Trixie Mattel stood in front of a full-length mirror.

She had been out of practice as she painted on thick eyeliner and carefully placed glitter around her eyes, but the wig on her head felt more like a home than a prison and slipping on her pads made her feel bouncier instead of heavier. 

For just a moment, she was as good as she had been claiming to be for weeks, better even. 

She pulled out her phone and took a selfie, a real and genuine smile on her face and a glow to her cheeks that came from more than just the blush. 

Trixie was about to send the photo to Katya, so excited to show her friend what she’d done, how far she’d come, when she noticed a message from Shea that she hadn’t opened.

It was simple, a link and something about  _ you should probably see this _ , and before she even opened it Trixie knew she didn’t want to know.

Honestly, she shouldn’t have been surprised by what she saw when she clicked on that link, because why should she get to be happy for longer than twenty minutes at a time? Why should she of all people be allowed to feel  _ good _ ?

It had gotten to the point where she was used to the fans turning against her, calling her out for disappearing without an explanation, because there were at least still some that were defending her, giving her the space she really needed to get her head back on her shoulders and a wig back on her head.

But this wasn’t a fan. This wasn’t some stranger whose name she could forget and whose face she’d never know. This was another queen, someone she’d worked with many times before, had confided in and had considered a friend. This was someone she trusted and the fact that they would publicly say, on facebook of all places, that  _ Trixie Mattel needs to get over herself _ , that  _ Trixie Mattel let her head get too big _ , that  _ Trixie Mattel just couldn’t handle the pressure _ \--

Trixie locked her phone without even finishing reading the entire post because her mind started racing and her heart was giving it a run for its money and when she looked back in the mirror and caught sight of herself she felt like she might throw up. 

Was it an overreaction when she practically tore her dress off and pulled the pads out of her tights? She really wasn’t sure. Was it dramatic when she ripped the wig from her head and felt her lungs constricting to the point of losing her breath? Maybe. 

She didn’t really care if her reaction was going too far, if something so simple shouldn’t have affected her so much because goddammit, it  _ was _ affecting her. 

She didn’t want to be Trixie Mattel anymore, so she was in the shower and scrubbing her identity from her face with hot water before she could catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror again and make it all that much worse. 

When she was out of the shower and Brian again and still couldn’t find his footing, couldn’t ground himself in anything other than irrational panic, he found a bottle of tequila and decided that it was probably the best option he had in that moment. 

Soon enough, he was drunk and angry and upset and  _ missing Katya _ on the floor of his living room. He was suddenly doubting all of his progress and could physically feel himself backsliding and he hated every second of it to the core of his being. Part of him couldn’t help but think how unnecessarily dramatized it all felt, but he couldn’t make himself mellow out no matter how hard he tried. 

He had just about enough coherence to open the uber app on his phone and find a car that would take him to the one place he could think of, the one place he could go and get out of the box, the prison, the coffin that his own apartment had become. 

And that’s how he found himself on the floor of Katya’s kitchen that night, a broken glass by his side from when he had still been trying to pour the tequila out of the bottle and into a cup rather than directly down his throat. That’s how he’d gotten wasted enough that he could focus on being excited to see Katya and not on the dread and anger that festered at the back of his brain. 

That was how he’d ended up on the couch with Katya and that’s how he’d come to the conclusion that if anyone could be his everything in the way that Katya was, then that person deserved to be kissed. 

Of course, Katya didn’t know any of this, didn’t know how Brian had gotten to his apartment or why he was so drunk or what had compelled him to pull himself into Katya’s lap.

All he knew was that Brian was kissing him,  _ Brian _ was kissing him and it wasn’t Trixie and it wasn’t for a camera and he couldn’t help but melt into the kiss because it felt like coming home in every cliched way Katya had ever heard. 

It was soft but insistent, slow but fast, it was  _ everything all at once _ and Katya let himself really absorb it for a moment before he tasted the tequila on Brian’s tongue and felt his stomach turn with guilt and shame. 

“Hold up,” Katya pushed Brian away, but Brian just took the separation to reposition himself, straddling Katya’s hips and pressing him back into the couch. 

Katya held his hands up, not sure where to put them because  _ god _ , he wanted to touch Brian, to run his fingers up his chest and down his back but he couldn’t, not like this. 

Brian leaned down to kiss Katya again but Katya dodged it and Brian’s lips ended up on his jaw. 

“Wait a minute,” Katya squeezed his eyes shut and was grasping onto every bit of self control he had. If he could choose to not smoke meth he could choose to not to do  _ this _ , right?

Brian wasn’t stopping though, and Katya needed him to stop.

“ _ Brian _ ,” Katya said and forcefully pushed Brian off of his lap, standing up and running both hands through his hair frantically. “Stop that.”

Brian fell back against the couch and looked up at Katya with confusion and just a little bit of hurt. 

“What’s wrong?” Brian asked. Katya hated how attractive he was finding him in this moment and groaned. 

“You’re drunk,” Katya said as if it was obvious. “You’re so fucking  _ drunk _ and you don’t want this.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Brian combatted, still slurring just enough to remind Katya that he was doing the right thing. “Don’t--don’t  _ tell me _ \--like I’m a fuckin’  _ child _ .”

“You’re so wasted,” Katya mumbled to himself as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to steady himself enough to handle this whole mess of a situation. “We’re gonna talk about your drinking habits when you’re sober, Jesus Christ.”

“ _ My _ drinking habits?” Brian laughed humorlessly, snorting where he sat like a puddle on the couch. “ _ You’re _ the fucking addict, you stupid mess of a--”

“Brian,” Katya said sternly. “Don’t.”

“Stop telling me what to do!” Brian raised his voice. “I know what I want-- I can decide what I fucking  _ want _ .”

“Really?” Katya snorted. “You want me to fuck you all of a sudden and you think I’m not gonna question the goddamn validity of that?”

“I always want you to fuck me, bitch-- I always-- You’re fucking  _ stupid _ ,” Brian insisted. 

“Would you just stop,” Katya sighed, wanting so badly to not be  _ there _ any more. “Can’t believe I’m being the fucking voice of reason about this.”

“Jacob  _ broke up with me _ because I wanted you to fuck me so bad,” Brian continued as if Katya hadn’t spoken at all, completely in his own world. 

“Jacob broke up with you because you went on tour for three months and he couldn’t handle it,” Katya reasoned.

“Nuh uh,” Brian shook his head emphatically. “I just told you that but I was  _ lying _ , Katya. I  _ lied _ to you.”

Katya raised his eyebrows, not entirely sure how much of this he should be taking seriously but knowing that he had to get out of that room before his head exploded. 

“Katya,” Brian continued. “Katya--Kat, I  _ said your name _ when he was fucking me. I  _ did that _ .”

Katya’s mouth fell open as Brian drunkenly blubbered on and on like that. 

“And I tried,” Brian continued. “Tried to play it off as a joke because your name is Brian but so is  _ my name _ , but he  _ knew _ . He fucking  _ knew _ because everyone fucking  _ knows _ and I--”

“I can’t be here,” Katya cut him off abruptly. “I have to--I don’t know--I’ll get someone to come check on you but I can’t be here right now.”

Katya could hear Brian protesting as he scrambled out the door and into the hallway. His hands shook as he stumbled down the steps and pulled his phone out of his pocket, not even sure what his next move was except for the fact that he couldn’t be the one to do this. He’d finally found his line and it was there on his living room floor when a drunk Brian Firkus started confessing how much he wanted to be fucked by him. 

He didn’t have a lot of options, didn’t know many people that would be willing to come babysit a drunk mess in someone else’s apartment at two in the morning but he scrolled through his contacts and took the path that seemed the most logical in a time that all logic seemed to have fled the scene of the crime. 

Brian collapsed back onto the couch when Katya ran out, let his arms fall across his face as the world spun and his stomach twisted. He didn’t have the forethought or dexterity left to chase after Katya, no matter how much he wanted to, and even so, felt like maybe he had really fucked up this time or crossed the one line that they had always managed to stay behind. 

When the door to the apartment opened again thirty minutes later, Brian’s eyes shot open with hope that maybe Katya had come back and he could fix whatever he’d made a mess of this time. 

“Hey, girl.”

“Alaska?” Brian questioned, rolling onto his side as Alaska slipped her shoes off and closed the door behind her. 

“You look like shit,” Alaska stated, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked at where Brian was hanging off the couch. She was wearing sweatpants and glasses and in any other scenario Brian probably would’ve tried to make a joke about it. 

“I feel like shit,” Brian groaned, swallowing bile that was rising at the back of his throat. 

Alaska snorted and grabbed a nearby trashcan, placing it in front of where Brian was sitting. 

“No way you’ll make it to the bathroom like this,” Alaska explained simply before moving towards the kitchen. 

“Where’s Katya?” Brian asked. 

“She’s taking a night off,” Alaska called over the sound of the sink running in the kitchen. And then, as she appeared around the corner with a glass of water: “You get me tonight, bitch.”

“I fucked up,” Brian groaned, holding onto the edge of the trashcan, finding reassurance in its presence. 

“Yeah, sounds like it,” Alaska said as she sat down on the edge of the couch and held out the glass of water for Brian to take.

“If I drink that I’m gonna puke,” Brian mumbled. 

“I think maybe puking might not be the worst thing for you right now,” Alaska responded, still holding the glass out insistently. “After everything you’ve done so far tonight, it might be good to get that out of your system.”

“Goddammit, she told you I tried to fuck her,” Brian groaned. 

“You  _ what _ ?” Alaska exclaimed, clearly hearing this particular fact for the first time. 

Brian leaned over the side of the couch and vomited straight into the trash can. 

Katya spent the night on Alaska’s couch, although he didn’t do much sleeping. He tossed and turned, stuck overthinking everything that had transpired since he’d walked into his apartment earlier that night. 

When his phone buzzed on the coffee table, he knew who it was, knew no one else would need to be contacting him at this time of night. 

 

**_From: Alaska Thunderfuck (3:15 a.m.)_ **

_ he puked but i made him drink water and now he’s passed out _

_ alive and okay though _

_ so you can stop worrying about that _

 

Katya let out a sigh of relief, grateful that Alaska could read him as well as she could for once. 

 

**_From: Katya (3:16 a.m.)_ **

_ thank you _

 

**_From: Alaska Thunderfuck (3:16 a.m.)_ **

_ so the bitch tried to fuck you huh? _

 

Katya sighed at that, knowing Alaska deserved some level of an explanation but barely having one for himself. 

 

**_From: Katya (3:16 a.m.)_ **

_ don’t ever tell me i don’t have self control _

 

**_From: Alaska Thunderfuck (3:17 a.m.)_ **

_ proud of you _

 

Katya snorted at the message and watched the three little dots that indicated Alaska wasn’t done. 

 

**_From: Alaska Thunderfuck (3:18 a.m.)_ **

_ you’re gonna have to talk about it _

 

**_From: Katya (3:18 a.m.)_ **

_ yeah _

 

Brian threw up two more times when he woke up the next day, feeling like actual garbage both physically and emotionally. Sure, he was pretty much fully healed of any bruising at this point, but something about the way this hangover in particular was clinging to his bones made him feel like it was the day after all over again. 

Alaska was still there, offering water and aspirin and advice to  _ take a shower, you’re a mess _ . 

By the time Brian was back in his own apartment and groaning at the sight of all the drag strewn around his room, he had thoroughly relived the night before at least six times, each replay reminding him of just how much of a mess it had all become. 

He had opened a new message to Katya a dozen times so far that morning, and as he collapsed into his bed with a pounding headache and a heavy heart, he tried yet again. 

 

_ I fucked up. _

Delete.

_ I didn’t mean any of it. _

Delete.

_ I meant all of it. _

Delete.

_ I was so drunk _

Delete.

_ Thank you. _

Delete.

_ I’m sorry. _

Send. 

 

Brian set his phone aside with a thumping heart and pulled the covers up around him, tears falling softly at the thought that maybe there was no coming back from this, that maybe he had pushed Katya away for good. Even through everything that had gone down in recent months, Brian had always assumed he’d have Katya, always figured his best friend would always be there even if it all went south. 

Brian was good at being alone, sure, but he didn’t want to think about a world where he didn’t get to laugh with Katya. 

His heart jumped up into his throat when his phone buzzed just minutes later.

_ I know. _

Brian cried harder at that, not entirely sure why and knowing it was only making his headache all that much worse. He didn’t know how to respond to Katya, and so he chose not to. 

He chose not to talk to Katya for three days, continuing and constantly and actively  _ choosing _ to avoid his friend in the hopes that he could have a chance to gather his thoughts and finally find what it was he actually wanted to say. It had been so long since he’d really used his words, really taken the time to form letters into sentences, and the thought of airing out all the muddled feelings in his head scared him a little bit. 

He knew that he had been through hell and he knew that he had made mistakes as a result of trying to get back on his feet. He knew that he had been on the right path but that setbacks were bound to happen. He knew that he had been putting off saying so many things for so long and dear lord did he know it was time to finally say them.

But he waited three days. He just needed three days. 

On the first day Brian was hungover and cried.

On the second day he wrote. He wrote letters and lyrics and everything he was thinking and feeling spilled out of his head and onto paper. 

On the third day he decided he was tired of it. He was tired of the tears and the emotions and feeling like a goddamn mess all of the goddamn time. He was tired of how scared he was, scared of the men he passed on the sidewalk and his own head and the thought of losing his best friend. 

He was tired and he was going to stand up and do something about it.

Brian almost let himself turn around and go back on his decision when he approached that club on the night of the third day. 

“Hi, honey, you lost?”

Brian spun around at the voice, meeting the gaze of an unfamiliar queen in a bright blue gown and hair to the ceiling. The hallway was small, most backstage areas of clubs like this were, and Brian got flustered.

“I, uh,” he fumbled. “I’m looking for the dressing rooms?” Brian was aware that he very much didn’t look like he belonged here, out of drag and quite honestly looking like he hadn’t slept in days (he hadn’t). 

“Looking for someone in particular?” the queen asked, either genuinely trying to help him as much as possible or just reading the situation before she let a strange man wander the halls. He appreciated both motivations. 

“Katya,” he cleared his throat. “I’m uh… I’m a friend.

“Wait,” the queen’s eyes got a bit wider. “Are you Trixie Mattel?”

It was Brian’s turn to go wide-eyed at that. 

“I…” Brian floundered before letting out a deep sigh. “Yeah, just… I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone you saw me here.”

“Keepin’ a low profile?” the queen asked and Brian nodded. “I get it. Come on, Katya’s around the corner with a couple more of your girls.”

Brian let out a relieved breath and let the queen guide him down the hall and around the corner. 

“Right in there,” she motioned to a door from which loud music and even louder voices were erupting. 

“Thank you,” Brian said genuinely, and she nodded with a smile before heading back the way she had come. 

Brian looked at the door with a furrowed brow for a moment before he took a deep breath, sucked it up, and turned the handle. 

It took a moment for anyone to notice him in the doorway, but as soon as his presence was known, a hush fell over all conversation. 

“Tracy Martel, back from the dead,” Willam said, receiving a smack from Courtney. 

“Shut up,” Courtney hissed.

“What?” Willam whined. 

Brian barely even registered the interaction in the corner of the room because his eyes had already met Katya’s in the mirror. He stood, halfway dressed and wigless, hand still hovering by his face where he’d seemingly just finished applying red lipstick. 

Brian’s heart stuttered in his chest at the open book of emotion on Katya’s face. 

“Can I talk to you?” Brian asked as he maintained eye contact with Katya in the mirror, barely loud enough to hear over the music. Katya nodded, dropping the lipstick on the counter and not even caring that it rolled off onto the floor as he made his way across the room.

Brian grabbed Katya’s hand and was dragging him down the hallway in an instant, through the narrow corridors and out the back door to stand in an alleyway behind the club. Katya remained silent, letting Brian take the lead. 

Brian let go of Katya once the door was shut behind them, propping it open so they wouldn't be locked out. 

“I wanted to tell you I'm sorry,” Brian began, stuffing both of his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. 

“You don't have to apologize--”

“Wait, I have a lot to say and if I don't get it out I'll lose adrenaline and pussy out,” Brian insisted, gaze flitting from the ground to Katya's face and back again. 

Katya just nodded, bit at his lower lip slightly, just hard enough to leave a faint pink tint of lipstick on his front teeth. 

“Okay,” Brian took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady and only kind of succeeding. “I haven't been treating you fairly.”

Katya looked like he wanted to protest that but kept his mouth shut. 

“I let everything that's been going on take over my entire life,” Brian continued, gaining speed and confidence as he went. “Granted it’s been a lot and it’s taken me a long time to even start moving forward, but I let it fucking  _ consume _ you as much as it consumed me and that wasn't fair. You've been here for every single second of this bullshit and I never stopped to consider how any of it might be affecting you. I took advantage of how much you love me and I will never stop apologizing for that,” Brian shook his head, tears pricking at the back of his eyes.

“Brian,” Katya breathed, voice equally filled with emotion as the safety lights of the street glinted in his eyes. 

“I’m not saying I shouldn’t have been so much of a mess--I had a right to be a fucking mess,” Brian continued, laughing softly. “I’m just saying that I’m sorry for how it all fell on your shoulders.”

“Can I please talk--”

“I'm almost done,” Brian assured him. “The other night I--the other night I said some things and I could stand here and say I didn't mean them or remind you of how drunk I was and make excuses all night but Katya,” Brian’s breath hitched in his throats and he looked up at the dark sky for a moment before seeming to shake himself back to the present moment. “Brian, the only thing I regret is that I didn't say any of it  _ right _ .”

Katya's lungs tightened at the use of his boy name and his stomach flipped upside down and inside out at the mere thought of what Brian was insinuating. 

“How would you have said it?” Katya all but whispered, eternally aware of how little space stood between them. “What would've made it more right?” 

Brian took a deep breath, squared his shoulders. 

“I'd have made sure you knew that it was more than how I made it sound,” Brian answered, maintaining eye contact fully at this point. “I'd have made sure you  _ knew _ that I feel about you the way you feel about me. No jokes, no lies, just honest truth about how your voice keeps me grounded and your fingers give me goosebumps even when you're just barely touching me and the way you’re my favorite human being on this godforsaken planet--”

“Fuck,” Katya's tears began to fall, and Brian soldiered on, tears of his own tumbling down his pink cheeks. 

“I'd have made sure you knew that I don't just want to come to you when everything goes to hell, that you're the first person I call when something good happens because even just  _ hearing _ your smile makes me feel lighter. I want you there for all of it, the good and bad and fucked up and funny and gross--And  _ god _ , I wanna be there for you too, no matter how messy it gets, I don't care I just never stop thinking about _ you.” _

Brian finished with a shaky breath and Katya stood with his mouth agape for a moment before speaking up. 

“Yeah,” Katya said, reaching up and wiping stray tears off of Brian’s face with his thumb. “That definitely would've been better.”

Brian let out a strangled chortle of a laugh and Katya couldn't help but grin past his tears.

“Can I just say,” Katya continued quietly. “I appreciate the apology, but there’s nowhere else in the world I would have rather been than with you through all of this. There’s nowhere else I’d rather ever be than with you. You’re like my  _ top ten _ favorite people,” he said with a soft laugh. 

“It’s not a competition,” Brian teased with a watery smile, taking a small step closer to Katya. 

“Since when are you not competitive?” Katya cocked his head to the side and looked up at where Brian’s face hung just above his in space. 

This time when Brian kissed Katya, it was slower, with his hands on the older man’s cheeks and their noses brushing up against each other. Katya let his hands float up and land on Brian’s waist, savoring every moment of Brian’s lips dancing across his with eyes closed and fingers grasping onto the fabric of his shirt. 

This time when they kissed it felt right.

This time when they kissed it felt  _ good _ . 

Brian let one of his hands snake around the back of Katya’s neck to pull him closer, deepening the kiss as their bodies pressed up fully against one another. Katya let his hands trail up Brian’s back and down again, trying to memorize every part of him as if this was his last chance. 

They both knew it wouldn’t be. 

Brian was the first one to pull away, breathing somewhat heavily but with soft eyes and a warm smile. He might still have had a long way to go, but he thought maybe kissing Katya was what he should have been doing all along. 

“I got lipstick on you,” Katya said, reaching up to wipe it off with his thumb because he knew how much Brian hated that. 

“I really couldn’t care less,” Brian laughed, almost surprising himself with the statement. “Listen, I’m still not at one hundred percent…” he hesitated, trailing off softly with his hands falling to Katya’s shoulders. 

“We don’t have to  _ be _ or  _ do _ anything until you’re ready,” Katya said, a casual moment of reassurance that Brian had no doubt was completely genuine. “We’ll take it slow.”

Brian nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth that was mirrored in Katya’s bright eyes. 

“You should finish getting ready, you don’t want to miss your time slot,” Brian motioned towards the door that would lead them back inside but didn’t actually make any moves to let go of Katya. 

“Are you headed home?” Katya asked.

“I was thinking maybe I’d stay, actually,” Brian said hesitantly. “Watch the show if you’re okay with that?”

“I’d like that,” Katya breathed out with a hopeful smile. “You can hang out in the wings if you don't want to risk getting recognized.” 

Brian nodded, letting a deep breath out through his nose.

“Thank you,” he responded. It was for more than just the suggestion.

In that moment Brian was thanking Katya for his support, for his hands to hold and shoulders to cry on, for his steady voice on the phone and his steady heartbeat in Brian's bed. He was thanking him for loving him back in a way he knew they'd talk about soon enough, for being patient and for being  _ there _ . 

Watching the show from the wings was the most alive and present and  _ happy _ Brian had felt in far too long. His friends high fived him on their way off stage and he yelled and clapped and didn't stop smiling the whole time.

His heart felt especially active while Katya was on stage, performing her heart out with such enthusiasm that was wild even for her. 

“You all having a good day?” Katya exclaimed, getting raucous cheers and applause from the crowd. “I asked because I’m a polite and feminine female woman but I honestly don’t care at all because my day is going fucking  _ great _ ,” she cackled, doubling over with laughter. 

Laughter in an equal measure bubbled up and out of Brian’s lungs where he sat on a speaker backstage. 

“Listen, listen,  _ listen _ , Barbara,” Katya continued, pacing the stage and talking with her hands. “Happiness is fleeting and there’s no such thing as a constant state of joy, but  _ girl _ ,” she shook her head and lifted her eyebrows, leaning forward towards the fans. “Girl, I am happier than I’d have been if I fuckin’ won All Stars, bitch!”

“Tell ‘em, whore!” Brian cupped his hands around his mouth and called to the stage, just loud enough that it caught Katya’s attention and made her shoot him the broadest, most genuine grin he thought he’d ever seen. 

“And I can’t tell you  _ why _ I’m so happy because that’s my personal business, Linda, and you don’t need to know,” Katya addressed the crowd again. “But I’m not even on drugs, so you know it must be good!”

Later that night, Brian would sit down on Katya’s bed with his autoharp and strum through chords and melodies, making more progress on his song than he had the whole time Katya had been on tour. 

Katya would curl up against Brian’s legs, letting his fingers dance over Brian’s sweatpants as he let the repeating of verses and scratching of pen on paper wash over him. 

 

_ Sometimes there’s a danger _

_ of choking on the parts. _

 

Katya nuzzled closer against Brian, burying his nose tiredly in the younger man’s hip. 

 

_ No one gave a warning _

_ To the breaking of your heart. _

 

Brian jotted down the new lyrics in his notebook with one hand, using the other to gently smooth down Katya’s hair. 

 

_ Pick up all the pieces  _

_ And go back to the start. _

 

Katya reached out and grabbed hold of Brian’s hand once he’d set down his pen, pulling it towards him gently and placing a kiss to his knuckles. 

“You should cuddle with me before I get jealous of your dumb folk instrument,” Katya said quietly, urging Brian to settle in so he could wrap himself around him more fully. 

“No man will ever satisfy me the way dumb folk instruments do,” Brian joked even as he set his autoharp aside and climbed under the covers. Katya just hummed in pseudo agreement, clearly exhausted as he folded himself into Brian’s side. 

Brian tucked Katya’s head under his chin as one hand traced shapes into the older man’s shoulder. Both of their heartbeats steadied out and their breathing began to slow as they drifted closer to sleep. 

“Wake me up when you get up,” Katya whispered. “I wanna make you breakfast.”

“You can’t cook,” Brian chuckled quietly. 

“I’ll go buy you a muffin or some shit from down the street,” Katya insisted. 

“Or we could sleep until noon and go get lunch,” Brian suggested. 

“You’re a genius,” Katya gasped. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“Go to sleep already,” Brian let out a breath of a laugh. 

“Can I have a small kiss first,” Katya tilted his head up to look at Brian with a tired smirk. 

Brian rolled his eyes good naturedly and leaned down the extra inch it took to press his lips against Katya’s, slow, as though they had all the time in the world and were willing to spend it right there in that moment. 

Katya pulled away with a satisfied smile before melting back into Brian’s chest with a contented sigh. 

It felt like the world snapped back onto its axis. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe there's only one more chapter left but thank you so much for coming along with me on this <3 
> 
> come say hi @ourforgottenboleros on tumblr or feel free to leave me a comment to let me know what you think! love you byyeee


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who let your sorry ass in here?”
> 
> Katya’s head shot up to see Trixie standing in the doorway to the dressing room with a smirk.
> 
> “I knew the secret codeword, they had no choice,” Katya grinned as he hopped off the counter and landed on his feet.
> 
> “Oh, I knew there was a reason I was going to change that,” Trixie laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the last chapter so i just really want to take this moment to thank you all so much for reading and leaving all of your wonderful comments. it genuinely means so much to me and i really appreciate it. 
> 
> (in this chapter pls maintain suspension of disbelief for 1) timelines lmao and 2) comedy writing)
> 
> <3 <3 <3

Trixie Mattel stood in front of a floor-length mirror, fully made up as she adjusted the bow balancing in her blonde wig. 

She finally had a dressing room all to herself, it  _ was _ her show after all. 

It had been a solid month of touring, of finding her footing back on stage and remembering what her voice sounded like as strong and loud and confident as it flowed through speakers and over crowds of fans. 

The journey was a long one, from the two months of intense work and prep it had taken to get this show on its feet to the culture shock of jumping back into performing with something so personal and individual. There weren’t any other queens she could hide behind on this one. It was all her.

_ Trixie Mattel in technicolor, back with more shitty puns and more songs than ever _ she had boasted when she had announced the tour.  _ Oh, and don’t forget the incest jokes _ .

She had stuck to the states, a US tour was big enough for her first gig back, not to mention everything she had coming down the pike for her. 

Trixie and Katya had gotten back on track with their YouTube series, what Trixie had referred to as her _ re-entry to the real world _ . Their relationship wasn’t on display for the world to see yet-- because it  _ was _ a relationship, despite their insistence not to label anything too soon, to see where it went and just enjoy the slow process of something good for once in their goddamn lives. 

They started going on real dates and having truly off the charts quality sex. They learned more about each other than they thought they had yet to, the little intricacies of a person you can only really  _ get _ once you’ve committed a part of yourself to them. 

Katya and Trixie both had so much individually left to work through, but they were at each other’s sides for all of it. When they went to a movie on a Friday night and Trixie had suddenly tensed with uneven breaths in the seat next to Katya as a fight broke out on screen, Katya had been there to pull him up out of his seat and force his gaze away from the violence. He had let Trixie cry on his shoulder in a bathroom stall until he could breathe again.

When Katya decided he wanted to quit smoking, Trixie discovered (after many an argument) that reprimanding him for relapsing only ever made it harder to try again. The next time he caught Katya smoking a shame cigarette on his balcony, he just rubbed his back and reminded him that  _ this didn’t make him a failure _ . 

But they were happy, and they were thriving despite the distance their careers would always cause, and hey, it turned out they were going to get to make their own  _ television show _ together so they really couldn’t complain about any of it all that much. 

And now here Trixie was, on the closing night of her tour, finally back in the Los Angeles sunshine and feeling like she’d maybe actually pushed through the barrier that had blocked her path for so many months on end. The nerves in her heart were once again more like butterflies than wasps and she was sleeping through the night more and more often with each passing week.

She took a deep breath and smoothed down the front of her dress, letting out an almost disbelieving laugh at just how far she’d managed to come. She figured she was allowed to be proud of herself. 

When she checked her phone, she found a few messages congratulating her on the tour, but only one that she would focus on.

 

**_From: Katya (7:15 p.m.)_ **

_ Mother, I get to see my best friend perform again _

 

**_From: Trixie (7:18 p.m.)_ **

_ don’t you dare text during the show, bitch _

 

**_From: Katya (7:18 p.m.)_ **

_ not only will i not do that _

_ I will also publicly disgrace anyone who does _

_ It’ll be a case of true and pure humiliation for them _

 

**_From: Trixie (7:19 p.m.)_ **

_ thank you for your service _

_ Did you get a good seat? _

 

**_From: Katya (7:20 p.m.)_ **

_ ideally i would prefer to sit on the edge of the stage so i can look up your skirt but _

_ I guess this will do _

 

**_From: Trixie (7:21 p.m.)_ **

_ you’re a disgusting pervert _

 

**_From: Katya (7:20 p.m.)_ **

_ you’re a legend icon and star about to blow these kids’ minds _

 

**_From: Trixie (7:21 p.m.)_ **

_ what did i say about genuine kindness right before i go on stage _

 

**_From: Katya (7:20 p.m.)_ **

_...that it has no place in your prep for all the twisted humor _

_ But in my defense! _

_ i haven’t told anyone sitting around me that i’m dating the most beautiful woman in the world _

_ so i deserve some credit for that _

 

Katya smiled down at his phone. It was the first time he would actually get to watch the show and he was practically bouncing at the thought of it. Trixie had insisted he not come earlier in the tour, wanting to smooth out the kinks and really have a chance to perfect it before he got to see it. 

Katya of course had protested, ultimately wishing he could have been there for every single performance in every single state, cheering on his favorite person as she took the world by storm, but had eventually conceded to going along with Trixie’s wishes. He was kind of a huge sucker for making Trixie happy. 

So he had bought a ticket to closing night in LA, showed up to the theater before the doors had even opened, and did his best to dodge fans as he settled into his seat with giddy, fluttery, edge-of-his-seat excitement. 

He hadn’t lied to Trixie, and the moment the lights in the theater began to go down, he turned his phone off and tucked it away, giving her and only her all of his attention. 

He almost started crying the moment that Trixie walked out on stage, tall and pink and carrying herself with a fearless stride that made Katya’s heart swell with pride and love. 

On stage, Trixie was still nervous, still worried about missing her own cues or forgetting that one set of jokes or the strumming pattern to that song, but she was also thrilled to be up there and sharing this show, a long-shot goal which she had worked her ass off to make a reality.

The first three quarters of the show were pretty typical of a Trixie Mattel performance, jokes and songs, a little bit of tap dancing and even a couple of cheer-inducing costume reveals. The audience was living for it, living for her enthusiasm and her deadpan humor and the way she was able to laugh at herself. 

“Fuck you, I thought that was funny,” Trixie insisted after a joke fell flat. She wasn’t actually upset, the joke always fell flat and she always got a big laugh when she called them out on it.

She pulled the microphone off of its stand and began to pace casually across the stage, kicking her white cowboy boots out in front of her nonchalantly.

“I’ve got one more song here for you in a minute,” she said. “But I need to set it up, so just pretend that this transition was smooth,” she shrugged and the audience laughed. 

Trixie kept walking until she abruptly stopped, stumbling backwards as though she had run into an invisible wall. 

“Oh, Jesus!” Trixie exclaimed in faux surprise. “That elephant in the room sure is hard to avoid, isn’t?” the audience cackled. “Yes, I  _ did _ disappear off the face of the planet for the majority of last year, and  _ yes _ I do know you desperately missed me.”

“Missed you, Tracy!” a fan called out from the audience.

“Shut the fuck up, this isn’t about you,” Trixie mocked offense and got another laugh. “People had a lot of really fun theories about where I went, actually, so that’s cool. I was apparently on All Stars 3 so I’m super excited to see how that goes,” she joked sarcastically. “Someone even asked Katya if I was  _ dead _ \-- as if that bitch won’t be on a year-long scavenger hunt to find what I left her as per my last will and testament after I die.”

Trixie could almost hear Katya wheezing with laughter from the audience at that, but maybe she was just imagining it. 

“Wasn’t on the imaginary season of All Stars y’all think they’ve already shot, but also not dead, so I’ve got that going for me,” she continued. “You wanna know where I really was?” she asked with an excited smile and nodded as the audience cheered. 

She began to skip around the stage as she sing-songed her response.

“Guess who got to be a victim of a  _ hate crime! _ ” she was grinning and posing and playing it off as a joke but a confused murmur fell over the room. “Oh, wow. That brought the mood down, didn’t it?” she laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna make it funny. Trauma is hilarious!”

A smattering of people chuckled but Trixie wasn’t bothered. She’d been doing this all tour, talking about it and turning it into something she could laugh about, and it always had a bit of a rocky start.

“Homophobia is wild, y’all,” Trixie continued. “Like, I hate rich people and find that they often ruin the sanctity of my poverty, but I’m not running around and beating up millionaires in the street, am I right?” she nodded, urging the audience to feel comfortable talking about any of this. 

She was determined to make them hear it. She was determined that they’d be able to laugh about it together.

“I had the ever-living shit beat outta me--  but I’m still not sure how they knew I was gay…” she trailed off, looking down at her ensemble with comical obviousness. “I was still in full drag when I got to the hospital too,” she talked with her hands enthusiastically, making her way around the stage as she spoke. “And the way those sliding doors opened for me,  _ girl _ . It was the perfect dramatic entrance, I felt like I was coming back into the workroom and it was just like-- _ Hey Emergency Medical Services, let’s get traumatized!” _

Trixie tossed herself backwards into an awkward, pseudo death drop and successfully got the audience back on her side. She rolled around on the floor for a moment as they continued to laugh, being more dramatic and fumbling than necessary just to keep the momentum going as she stood up. 

“But look at me now,” Trixie continued, posing dramatically. “A skinny legend about to blow your goddamn minds,” she spun on her heel and moved to the side of the stage where she picked up her autoharp. 

Of course, she had since bought a new guitar, having spent hours at the store trying to find one that felt the same as her old one, but she’d grown attached to the smaller instrument in its absence. Also, this next song couldn’t be played on anything but the autoharp, of that she was certain. 

“This is called an autoharp,” Trixie said into the microphone as she clipped the strap around her shoulders. “I play it because I’m white.”

The audience laughed and she grinned to herself as she strummed a few times to find the starting cord. 

“But to be serious for a second--I know,  _ Trixie we didn’t come to a drag show for serious _ \-- well, you already paid so I don’t fuckin’ care, cunts,” Trixie continued. “People keep calling my time off a  _ vacation _ , when it was really anything but that. If you’ve ever dealt with any sort of physical or emotional trauma, you know that you kind of forget how to function for a little while? You’ve still got all the pieces, but you can’t quite remember how to keep them all moving at once.”

This was the part of the show that Trixie was always the most nervous during. She was putting herself out there with so much vulnerability, and it scared her senseless. As a drag queen, she wasn’t used to getting up on stage and being  _ real _ , her whole schtick was literally being made of plastic, after all. 

She looked out over the crowd, letting herself take in all the people that had taken their time and money to come see her do what she loved and her heart sped up. 

It was then that Trixie spotted Katya in the audience for the first time, in an aisle seat halfway back. Their eyes met and Trixie took a deep breath, letting a small smile grow over her face. Katya wiped at his eyes in what he hoped was an inconspicuous way (but really was anything but). 

“I think I’ve finally started to get all my gears working again though,” Trixie said, still looking at Katya. “And that’s what this song is about. It’s called  _ Moving Parts _ .”

Katya cried when he watched Trixie play that last song of the night. He watched in awe as she smiled through the lyrics, how she looked so joyful as she strummed out a few bars of an autoharp solo to cheers and applause. 

He remembered telling her that if anyone could find the humor in something like all of the shit she’d gone through, it was her, but what he realized as he listened was that she’d done so much more than that. She was still Brian Firkus, Trixie Mattel, and everything in between, but she had an air of honesty to her that had never quite been there before. 

He knew that Trixie would never forgive those men for what they’d done, Katya certainly wouldn’t either. But he also knew that she had finally learned how to give herself credit for being strong enough to move on. She was prideful and tough and still had a soft and kind heart through all of it. 

If Katya hadn’t already known for years that he was in love with Brian Firkus, he certainly would have figured it out that night.

 

_ Pick up all the pieces  _

_ And go back to the start. _

_ Never losing, only using _

_ All your moving parts. _

 

Katya waited for Trixie in her dressing room while she did a meet and greet with fans. He sat on the makeup counter with his legs dangling above the ground while he grinned down at his phone, unable to stop the warm glow that the show had left on his mood. 

He took to twitter as a way to get all his feelings out. 

 

_ @katya_zamo: the most beautiful woman in the world graced us common folk with disgustingly good hilarity tonight and you’re a dumb cunt if you didn’t buy a ticket _

 

_ @katya_zamo: do they give tony’s for off off off off off broadway one woman shows bc tallulah maraschino deserves one _

 

And once people started replying, he used  _ that _ as a way to get his feelings out. 

 

_ @katiejoness: @katya_zamo we saw you in the audience!!!!  _

_ @katya_zamo: @katiejoness WHY WEREN’T YOU LOOKING AT THE STAGE THAT’S WHERE THE ART WAS HAPPENING BITCH _

  
  


_ @generictwitterhandle: what was your favorite part of trixie’s show??? _

_ @katya_zamo: @generictwitterhandle oh! the part where trixie was on stage _

  
  


_ @ihatemakinguptwitterhandles: @katya_zamo did you like this show or contact better _

_ @katya_zamo: @ihatemakinguptwitterhandles don’t tell her but i’d destroy every copy of contact to save this show _

 

Katya was having a blast flooding twitter with his praise, and knew that Trixie would get a kick out of it when she saw (even if she pretended to be annoyed by it). 

“Who let your sorry ass in here?” 

Katya’s head shot up to see Trixie standing in the doorway to the dressing room with a smirk. 

“I knew the secret codeword, they had no choice,” Katya grinned as he hopped off the counter and landed on his feet. 

“Oh, I knew there was a reason I was going to change that,” Trixie laughed. 

Katya scrambled across the floor and pulled Trixie into a tight hug. He expertly avoided grabbing onto her hair but couldn’t care less if he wrinkled her clothes. Trixie didn’t seem to mind though, holding him tight against her until Katya pulled away.

“Now get in here and close that door so I can kiss your stupid face off,” Katya said, practically dragging Trixie into the room by her hand.

Trixie cackled loudly, but Katya was true to his word and cut her off with a kiss made mostly of smiles bumping into one another. Their height difference was particularly comical in this moment with Trixie in heels and Katya not, but Katya had no issue with standing on his toes to kiss his best friend. It wasn’t particularly sexy, but they didn’t care because they were here and they were together. 

“Do you have any idea how fucking proud of you I am?” Katya asked when he pulled away and rocked back on his heels, hands still gripping Trixie’s shoulders. 

“Stop,” Trixie laughed softly, eyes falling in a rare moment of pure humility. 

“Never, nope, not gonna happen,” Katya grinned, running his hands down Trixie’s arms and holding onto her hands with both of his. “You killed it up there. Slaughtered it, wrung it’s throat with your  _ bare hands _ and gutted it with your  _ teeth _ \--”

“Why are your compliments always so disgusting?” Trixie cut him off. 

“I just have too many feelings about how good you just were. Let me express myself, goddammit!” Katya exclaimed with a laugh. 

“Thank you for coming,” Trixie said after a beat, genuine gratitude radiating off of every inch of her. 

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” Katya replied with equal sincerity. He lifted a hand to cradle Trixie’s jaw, letting his thumb gently trace over the distinct lines of her contour. 

“And thank you for…” Trixie bit her lip and paused for a moment, but Katya just smiled softly with patience. “Thank you for everything,” Trixie said. 

There was weight to those words, more than just the past year of trial and tribulation going on her list of thanks. Trixie liked to think that she had picked herself up off the ground all on her own, but figured that she’d still be lost inside of her own head if Katya hadn’t crawled in and dragged her out. 

“Anything for you,” Katya said, pulling Trixie into another hug and burying his face in her hair. “Everything for you.”

The two celebrated the end of Trixie’s tour together that night, just the two of them, some wine for Trixie, and hours upon hours that they were free to spend in the same room, in the same bed. 

They were giddy and joyful and so full of love for one another that they were radiating light which then bounced back off the pink walls in Brian’s bedroom. 

Later that summer, Katya was spending most every night in Brian’s bed as the two of them worked day in and day out to film their television show ( _ We’re gonna be on TV, Brian. Do you know what this means?--We can finally become the Hollywood power couple you’ve always wanted us to be?). _

It was one of those nights in particular, when both of them were especially exhausted and had ordered take-out for the third night in a row, when Katya really started to bask in the domesticity of it all. They had been together for less than a year, only a handful of months really, but it already felt so natural to be sharing a space with Brian like this, to be lounging on his couch while he showered so they could watch an episode of  _ Game of Thrones _ together before they went to sleep. 

Katya was thinking about how much he weirdly enjoyed the sight of his shoes next to Brian’s by the front door when he heard the shower shut off and Brian’s phone start ringing from the bedroom simultaneously.

“Babe, your phone is ringing!” Katya called, just as the door to the bathroom opened and Brian scurried out, still dripping with a towel wrapped around his waist. Katya didn’t even bother trying to not check out his ass, that was one perk of being in a relationship with him to say the least, he didn’t have to pretend anymore. 

“I hear it, I hear it!” Brian said frantically. Katya chuckled and faintly heard Brian answer the phone in the other room, but didn’t bother much with paying attention to what was being said. 

Instead, he thumbed through the channels on Brian’s TV set, landing on some home improvement show where they were decorating a child’s bedroom to look like a farm. Katya wondered how any child could be so attached to agriculture that they would want to sleep in a barn. 

He was furrowing his brow at the TV and about to call out to Brian to see if he as a country boy had ever desired such a thing when Brian emerged from the bedroom, still wearing only a towel and staring at his phone as if it was about to give him the secrets of the universe. 

“Brian?” Katya asked, brow furrowed now for a very different reason. 

Brian lifted his gaze to meet Katya’s, eyes wide in such a way that Katya was suddenly nervous, suddenly reliving that first night last year when Brian had stumbled out of his bedroom in search of a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on. 

“Is everything okay?” Katya stood up and walked over to stand by Brian, placing a hand to gently hold his forearm. 

“I’m about to break a verbal contract and I’m gonna need you to promise you’ll be the only one who knows about this,” Brian said, face still unreadable. 

“Of course,” Katya responded immediately. “Should I be worried? I feel like I should be worried. Can you tell me what’s going on before I get more worried, please?”

“The only thing you should be worried about is that I’m gonna do better than you did on All Stars,” Brian said, a grin finally spreading over his face with a breath of disbelief. 

It took Katya a moment to catch the meaning of Brian’s statement, but the moment he did he was screaming and pulling a giddy Brian flush against him. 

“Holy shit, mama! Holy motherfucking, goddamn,  _ yes! _ ” Katya exclaimed, bouncing up and down with a slightly damp Brian still trapped in his arms. He only pulled away to press and enthusiastic kiss to Brian’s laughing grin of a face. “You’re gonna have two TV shows at  _ once _ , bitch!”

Suddenly, a look of horror passed across Brian’s face.

“Oh god, our show,” he said. “Oh my god, I only have a few weeks to get ready and we’re still shooting our show and--”

“Shh, hey this is a good thing, don’t pull a  _ me _ and get in your head about the good thing,” Katya urged him, putting both his hands on either side of Brian’s face and forcing him to meet his gaze. 

“I don’t want to take my attention away from our show, though. That’s so important, I can’t fuck that up for us,” Brian said with a shake of his head. 

“You’re not gonna fuck it up,” Katya insisted, still smiling. “Listen, we’ll shoot our show during the day, and then we’ll come back here and I’ll help you prep for All Stars. We’ll sew and plan and stay up all night if we have to.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Brian breathed, finally letting his face relax and a soft smile take over once more. 

“You’re going to fucking  _ kill this _ ,” Katya said, pure joy radiating off his skin. 

“Do you really think that?” Brian asked, clearly genuinely curious, a level of uncertainty tinging his tone. 

“Do you  _ not? _ ”

“I just--” Brian adjusted the towel around his waist absentmindedly. “What if one little thing goes wrong and I have a mental breakdown on national television?”

“You’ve been doing so well--”

“Because I have  _ you _ ,” Brian said, as if he was just realizing. “What happens when I’m off doing this and you’re not around anymore? I don’t know if I can…” he trailed off. 

Katya took Brian’s hands in his own, gently pulling him towards the couch and sitting him down. Brian put up no fight, brain whirring a mile a minute as he contemplated his own question, how hurriedly he’d agreed to this on the phone just moments ago without thinking it through. 

“Brian, look at me,” Katya said, still holding onto his hands and tucking his legs under himself so he could face Brian on the couch. 

“Yeah?”

“When was the last time you had a panic attack? Do you even remember?” Katya asked. Brian opened his mouth as if to answer, but closed it again when he couldn’t seem to find one. “You went on tour all by yourself and there have been plenty of time we haven’t been together…”

“Wait, has it really…” Brain mumbled, almost to himself. 

“It’s been  _ months _ , mama,” Katya said. Brian looked at him with eyes full of disbelief that slowly but surely relaxed into relief. “You’re gonna get in there and do your thing, and there won’t even be time for you to stop and think about being scared.”

There was a softness in Brian’s face as he listened to Katya, a hope and care that was reserved solely for the man seated in front of him. 

“God, I love you,” Brian said simply, pulling Katya towards him by the front of his shirt and pressing a warm kiss to his lips. Katya smiled against him, letting his hands roam across Brian’s bare chest. 

“I love you too,” Katya said in between peppering kisses all along Brian’s jaw and neck. “I love you so damn much, and I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Eventually they had to pull away to breathe, but Brian still rested his head on Katya’s shoulder, letting the older man play with his fingers and press sporadic kisses to any part of him he could reach. 

The summer sun was setting behind the mountains and they hadn’t turned on the lights of the apartment yet, relying solely on the quickly fading daylight and the glow of the television. Brian’s hands wandered across Katya’s chest, pulling gently at the fabric of his t-shirt as he thought about how far they had both come, how far they still had yet to go. 

“I’m gonna be on All Stars,” Brian whispered, as much just to hear it stated out loud as to remind Katya. 

“You will finally bring honor to our family,” Katya chuckled and Brian snorted against him. 

“I like the sound of that,” Brian mumbled.

“Of winning?”

“Of us being a family,” Brian said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He felt Katya’s grip tighten on him ever so slightly. 

“Me too.”

The sun was setting and they were only just getting started. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S OVER WOW. 
> 
> thank you again so much for sticking through this with me, i love you all so so so much and i hope the ending was satisfying for you 3 <3 <3 
> 
> (i'll be back at some point with a new fic but it's proving to be longer than i expected and might take a hot minute lmao so in the meantime come say hi on tumblr) love you byyyee <3

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @ourforgottenboleros on tumblr if you wanna come say hi, thanks for reading <3


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